In the Stitching
by Colette Amelia
Summary: Maddie Fenton is many things: a ghost hunter, a scientist, a mother. With her expertise, she knows the infamous Danny Phantom. She knows her son, Danny Fenton, too. But when a new piece of evidence connects Phantom to her family, she realizes she might not know as much as she thinks she does.
1. Loosen

A/N: Hi there! I've never written for the Danny Phantom fandom before, but DP fanfiction is my favorite thing to read, especially revelation fics with Danny and Maddie. I think I've honestly read them all. I never thought I'd be able to write one of my own until this idea popped in my head. So, I'm trying it out. I hope you enjoy this story and please let me know what you think! Thanks!

* * *

A normal Fenton family vacation.

"Don't worry, Mads," her husband said, "I've got it!" With the snapping flourish only a man of Jack's size could accomplish, Maddie watched as he produced one of their many ecto-weapons from the pocket where he normally stored fudge and rushed after the ghost.

 _Normal_.

She should have known better.

The words "normal" and "Fenton" could never be used together. They were practically opposites. "Normal" couldn't describe one member of her family. She and Jack were self-proclaimed ghost hunters and inventors, Jazz was a certified genius, and Danny…well, there was definitely something different about Danny. She couldn't say what it was, but she knew. He wasn't the same little boy she taken to the park for picnics.

With Danny, she didn't know where she'd gone wrong. And that hurt—more than actually knowing what was wrong. Because there was something going on with Danny, something he wasn't telling her. Over the past year, his grades had rapidly dropped. Never one to try to outdo his sister, Danny had still always been a solid student, managing a range of A's, B's, and a C or two. Now, she was lucky if she saw a B on his report card.

Maddie glanced back at her two children, both still clutching their walking sticks from their family hike. To her surprise, neither of her children looked particularly afraid of the attacking ghost. In fact, if she had to guess, she might even describe Danny's expression as one of anger.

"Kids!" she shouted at them, "Get back to the RV!"

Danny shook himself, eyes wide as they took in the ghost before he turned and raced away, much faster than she'd ever seen him run. When had he learned to run that fast? Last she checked, he was close to failing gym like the rest of his classes. Her son puzzled her. Once energetic and quick-thinking, he'd become aloof and a poor student. Yes, he was a teenager, but she could tell there was something more going on with him. If only he'd talk to her and tell her what. But talking was far and in-between when it came to Danny. He barely spent any time at home and, sometimes when she was sure he was home, she'd go to his room only to find it empty.

Jazz wasn't as fast as Danny. With one more glance at the ghost, she followed Danny towards the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle. And yet, before she turned, Maddie took note of how worry creased her daughter's forehead—worry she would have bet was directed at Danny and not Jack.

"Get back here you formation of ectoplasmic filth!"

Hoping her children were safe, she returned to the problem plaguing her family. After their last family vacation, she and Jack had agreed that it would do more harm then good to leave their jumpsuits and weapons home. In this moment, she was particularly thankful they'd decided to bring them.

Wielding his pocket weapon and shooting a couple shots into the air, Jack charged the ghost. A scorpion looking thing, the ghost actually swallowed Jack's blasts before shooting them back out its stinger. This was definitely a nasty ghost. She had to get to the weapons in the assault vehicle so she could help Jack. His errant blasts wouldn't hold off the scorpion forever. And, judging by the number of shots it was swallowing, she'd bet she didn't have long at all.

Wasting no time second guessing herself, she sprinted for the assault vehicle, pushing her muscles as fast as she could. Throwing open the driver door, she jumped inside to find Jazz standing in the back looking like she was about to shout at the ceiling.

"Jasmine," Maddie scolded, searching the RV, "where's your brother?"

Jazz's eyes connected with the four corners of a vehicle that was clearly empty aside from her presence. "He's—uh—he's in the bathroom!" she exclaimed, sticking a foot out and slamming the bathroom door shut before Maddie could get a peak inside.

Jazz nodded enthusiastically. "He's hiding in the bathroom."

She took a step towards the door, but Jazz blocked her path.

"He's fine," her daughter added, throwing her hands up between them. "He's just hiding. You know, from the ghost."

 _The ghost. Jack!_

If Jazz said Danny was fine then she was going to have to take her daughter's word for it. As long as her children remained inside the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle they would be safe. Jack was the one in immediate danger.

"You and Danny stay in here," she instructed Jazz. Plucking a hair from her head, she inserted it into the new Fenton DNA Security Lock. After a particularly nasty attack, where a ghost had managed to turn their weapons against them, she and Jack had turned to creating new measures of security on all their inventions. Now, only a Fenton could gain access to active ecto-weapons.

"Madeline Fenton, confirmed," the robotic voice of the machine cooed. "Have fun destroying ghosts."

A compartment in the assault vehicle opened, revealing her choice of five different weapons, including a Fenton thermos. She selected a long-range weapon, one they'd recently upgraded, and then a handheld one before turning back to her daughter.

Handing the handheld to Jazz, she said, "If a ghost comes anywhere near you or your brother, shoot it, okay?"

Jazz nodded as she clutched the weapon to her chest and leaned heavily on the closed bathroom door, a forced smile on her face. "Of course, Mom."

She didn't want to leave her children alone—it went against the motherly instinct that prodded her heart whenever she knew they were in danger—but Jack couldn't handle this ghost on his own. Danny and Jazz just needed to remain inside the RV. They would be okay.

Following the familiar sounds of ectoblasts and Jack's frustrated shouts, she raced into battle. Aside from those rare times they actually managed to catch a ghost at the end of their fight, the beginning of one was her favorite part. With Jack distracting the ghost, it was when she got to analyze the situation and her prey. More than once have her initial observations allowed her to get the jump on her enemy. Like the time she'd nearly blasted Danny Phantom's head off in the courthouse. If only her weapon had been properly charged. She would have had their town's most infamous ghost.

Clicking the safety off her gun, she shook the memory from her head. She couldn't dwell on past failures. It was better to focus on the future. Even better for her to focus on this fight.

"Your aim is terrible! What's wrong? Can't get on _point_?" a eerily familiar voice taunted.

She froze.

 _How did he get here?_

The ghost boy was engaged in combat with the scorpion ghost, easily overpowering the animal. While the appearance of the humanoid ghost wasn't necessarily a surprise, Maddie still found herself wondering where Phantom had come from. They were miles outside of Amity Park.

Even though Amity Park was believed to be Phantom's haunt, Maddie knew better. She'd seen him in Vlad's mansion in Wisconsin and in the desert during their first attempt at a Fenton family vacation. The only thing that worried her was how he always seemed to appear (and disappear) out of nowhere. She had a theory that he possessed the ability to open portals to and from the ghost zone but, because she'd never seen him use such a power, her theory remained just that: a theory.

Boisterous and full of himself, Danny Phantom—once known as Inviso-Bill—irked her more than any other ghost. And not for the reason most people thought. She'd recently gotten over how well he fooled the citizens of Amity Park into thinking he was a hero. That didn't bother her as much because at least _she_ still knew the truth. And in all honesty, he wasn't the complete nuisance he used to be.

No, what annoyed her was how he managed to find the ghosts before she did. Even with new, state-of-the-art tracking inventions (ones that still malfunctioned around her son), she could never seem to get to a fight in time. In fact, these days, she and Jack would arrive only to see Phantom disappear around the corner of a building. They would, of course, pursue him, but he always managed to vanish, taking the other ghost with him in his stolen thermos.

But that wasn't going to happen this time. This time, Phantom was the one late to the fight. This time, they would get both the scorpion and Phantom. She could feel it.

Jack stood below the two ghosts, firing shot after shot at them both. She could tell from his shouts that he desperately wanted to hit one of the ghosts, but try as he might, his aim only served to work against him. Sadly, his aim was about as good as the scorpion's. When they got back from vacation, perhaps she could coax him into going to a proper shooting range with her. She was a strong believer in the idea that "practice makes perfect." And, though she would always support him, Jack could use some practice.

She, on the other hand, had near perfect aim. Lining up her shot, she placed the ghost boy in the center of her scope. Despite the scorpion ghost's near constant shots, Phantom was the greater threat. He was the grand prize while the scorpion was merely a consolation one. And this time she had him. An eye on her scope, she watched Phantom pull out his stolen thermos.

Renewed anger coursed through her. How could everyone be so blind when it came to this one ghost? They ran away from all the others, but Phantom they ran towards. All because he took pleasure in beating his own kind. That certainly didn't make him a good ghost in Maddie's mind. If anything it showed he had a tendency toward violence.

Who was to say he wouldn't turn that anger on them? Sure he hadn't attacked a human in a long time, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen. So Maddie remained wary of him.

And, as she spotted the Fenton logo on the side of the thermos, a tendency toward theft, she reminded herself.

Good ghosts were extremely difficult to come by. Not impossible, she knew, for nothing was a sure thing, but very near that. And Phantom, while maybe not the worst ghost they'd ever encountered, certainly couldn't be classified as "good" in Maddie's book.

Feeling the weight behind her trigger, she pressed against it. The shot echoed in her right ear but the ectoblast galloped away from her. The green energy hit Phantom in the hand, knocking the thermos out of it, but that was the extent of her damage.

 _Damn_.

She'd hit him, but it wasn't enough. The thermos took most of the hit. Still, Phantom didn't look too happy. He cradled his hit hand against his chest, eyes flicking from her to the scorpion to the thermos that now lay on the ground. In a second, she knew what he was going to do.

"Jack!" she yelled, "Get the scorpion, I'll get Phantom!"

"On it, baby!" he shouted back with new enthusiasm, already racing toward the ghost.

Phantom dove for his thermos, just as she knew he would. The thing was like his safety blanket, he hated fighting without it. Her gun whining in anticipation, Maddie closed the distance between her and Phantom. With his attention so attuned to the scorpion and the thermos, he didn't have time to notice the threat closing in. Or maybe, he didn't really care. More than once she wondered if he even saw her, a renowned ghost hunter, as a threat. That didn't matter. It was his problem and he was going to be sorry for underestimating her. Another step and…

She had him.

He snatched the thermos off the ground where it had fallen and aimed it at the scorpion. Nothing happened.

"No, no, no," she heard Phantom moan. He furiously shook the thermos but the device still didn't power on. "Work you stupid thing. Work."

Jack shot at the other ghost, managing to snip it on a claw. The thing made a enraged cry and disappeared through the floor.

"Great," Phantom said. "It got away."

"But you didn't." Maddie raised her gun until its end rested against the back of Phantom's neck. "Don't move."

He didn't listen to her. Not that she really expected him too.

Wrinkles formed on the skin of his neck as he turned his head to get a glance at her. She held her gun firm, never straying from her target.

"Uhh…"

A nervous chuckle floated from him, its echo barely there. He rubbed the back of his head, a gesture that ignited a spark of familiarity in her.

"Good job?" he said. "Now maybe you can let me go?"

She glared at him. "Not a chance, Phantom." Turning her gaze to her husband who was bouncing he was so excited, she said, "Jack, quick, I need the Fenton Ecto-Net."

He beamed at her, pride shining in his big, blue eyes. "You got it, Mads."

The smile she intended for Jack melted from her face when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a slight movement. But that single movement was all it took.

At the same time as she flashed her gaze back to Phantom she pulled her trigger again. Except Phantom had already ducked away from her shot. His legs snapped together to form his ghostly tail, preparing to shoot off into oblivion.

"No!" Maddie shouted. She couldn't lose him again. Not this time. Forgetting her weapon and all her training, she reacted on instinct. Her hand whipped out and snatched at the collar of Phantom's suit, tugging him back towards her. But he'd already built up his energy to fly off, and just as she managed to grab him, he released it.

A shredding sound, followed by a soft whoosh, flicked at Maddie's eardrums. Less than a second later, Phantom was gone and all she was left holding was a torn piece of his jumpsuit. Her prey long gone.

The shred of fabric was naturally cool and smooth to the touch. Slicker than silk and fluid like water, it nearly slipped through her fingers. But where its owner had succeeded, the piece of black and white cloth failed as she managed to hold tight to the only thing that might finally give her the upper hand.

There was something a little familiar about the feel of the fabric. But Maddie knew she'd never gotten close enough to actually reach out and touch Phantom before. So then why would she recognize the feel of a piece of his clothing?

She flipped over the fabric to the side that would have been against his ghostly flesh. If one could call ectoplasm's imitation of skin flesh. She'd nearly touched the back of his neck. She might have even skimmed it. Maddie cursed at the thought. She'd been so close to catching him, a second faster and she wouldn't be playing the "what if" game.

Her nail caught on something inside, something not quite as smooth as the rest of the swatch from Phantom's suit. At the top of the fabric, near the collar, where black turned to white, was a small tag.

Her fingers trembled as she read the words stitched across the tag.

In nearly perfect cursive, complete with a swirl on the end of the "F," read the words "Fenton Jumpsuit."


	2. the

A/N: Wow. I have never had such an incredible response from the first chapter of a story. I want to say thank you but it just doesn't seem like enough. Still, a huge thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed, favorited, and even just read. You are all amazing. I've decided I am going to try to update this on a weekly basis so, as of right now, that means updates will be every Wednesday (or at least close to that given differing time zones and stuff). I'll do my best to stick to that promise but I don't have the whole story written or planned out yet so things might change. Anyway, thanks again for all the attention you've given this story and I hope you enjoy this chapter. :)

* * *

It was theirs.

The fabric was familiar because it came from her family. Maddie knew it immediately. She wore the same fabric—without the attached ectoplasmic aura—nearly every day. And if the feel wasn't enough, she would recognize Jack's flare for stitching anywhere. Jack, her husband, who couldn't make something without attaching their last name to it. Jack who was currently snoring like a freight train beside her and had no knowledge of the life-changing piece of evidence in her hands.

She ran a finger over the words again to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. No. The tag was real, and so was the label on it. She had already checked it over so many times—spending the afternoon pulling the piece of fabric from her pocket to study when her family wasn't looking. And every time she had been forced to make the same conclusion. The tag was definitely real, the label wasn't faked. As much as she wanted to believe it was, this wasn't some trick.

But that was impossible. It didn't make any sense. The ghost boy, Inviso-Bill—no—Danny Phantom—whatever he was called—could not in any way possess a jumpsuit made by the Fentons. Especially not one with Jack's personal label sewed inside.

Unless, someone had given him a jumpsuit without her knowing. Yes. It was possible that someone in the family had provided Phantom with clothing when...when what? That didn't make sense either.

No, even if a member of her family would—misguidedly—go behind her back to help a ghost, they wouldn't have been able to provide Phantom with a jumpsuit. Not only would normal, human clothes weigh a ghost down, but they would also interfere with the ectoplasmic continuities of a ghost's makeup. And then there was the well-known fact that ghosts have no need for clothing—the clothing they wear is as attached to them as the hair on their head. Once they die in an outfit they can never take it back.

And that was exactly what bothered her so much. Because that fact—one she herself had determined—was irrefutable. So that meant… She shuddered and the piece of fabric slipped through her fingers.

It meant Phantom had been wearing a Fenton jumpsuit when he died.

Her stomach lurched at the thought, her burger from dinner threatening to return to her esophagus. Taking a few deep breaths, she forced herself to stay calm—to think this through rationally. There had to be another explanation. She needed one. Any other one. Just one reason that might explain away why Phantom was wearing a Fenton jumpsuit when he died. Without such a reason she would be forced to confront a harsh truth—that a person, a teenager no older than her own son, had died and was somehow connected to her family. Worse, that this teenager's death was somehow connected to her family. She didn't know anyone who had died recently. But it only made sense that Phantom knew someone in her family.

She froze, her eyes finding the sleeping figure of her son. Phantom was around Danny's age. He probably knew Danny. She watched her son toss and turn in his sleep. He never rested easy anymore.

Could this, at last, be the reason for his dropping grades? For his exhaustion and strange behavior? Was he harboring a fearful secret? One involving the death of a friend and the infamous ghost boy?

There was only one problem with her theory. She swallowed hard as she stared at Danny, a disturbing thought coming to mind.

If one of his friends had died, then where was the body?

Maddie fled the confines of the RV. Flinging open the passenger door, she didn't bother shutting it as she stumbled out into the open air. Unlike herself, the night was calm and cool, a light wind coming off the water. She felt heavy and sick, like she'd been out on the rough sea for too long. Wave after wave of unwanted images flickered through her mind.

Danny watching Phantom die. Danny moving the body. Danny hiding the body. Danny sweating over his friend's dead body after digging a grave to bury him in their backyard.

She retched and her burger came back up to greet the world. Even when there was nothing left in her stomach, it heaved inside her and her body lurched. She couldn't calm herself enough to control her gag reflex. Turning away from her dinner's remains, she forced air in through her nostrils.

"Mom?"

She stilled at the sound of her son's voice. Danny stood beside the open door to the RV, his dark head cocked to the side, staring at her with one eye while he wiped the sleep from his other.

"You okay?" he asked.

Reaching up toward the sky, he stretched, a yawn escaping him. The longer his body became, the higher his pajama bottoms moved until they were at his shins. They were the pajamas she'd gotten him for Christmas two years ago—the ones with all the constellations on them. He'd gotten taller over the past year. Even when he lowered his arms again, the ends of his pants hung above his ankles. He needed new ones. How had she not noticed how much he'd grown? How had she not known he was grieving?

She forced her lips to form a smile. "Fine, sweetie," she said and wiped the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. "The burger just didn't agree with me, I guess."

His eyes flashed from her hunched over form to the small pile of half-digested burger and bile on the ground. Frowning, he looked back at her and, for a second, she could have sworn she saw a green light flicker behind his eyes.

"You need anything?"

She smiled for real this time. Despite having pulled away from her over the past year, her son still cared. And now that she had some idea why he had pulled away, perhaps she could start to bridge that gap.

Danny had always carried around a deep concern for the living. She could remember a time when he was six years old and he'd walked into the kitchen one summer afternoon cradling a dead robin in his arms. Tears making his blue eyes twinkle, he'd asked her how he could save the bird. She had to explain to him how once something was gone it couldn't be saved.

But he'd held the bird out to her, tears falling fast, and begged her to fix it, saying "But it's not gone! It's a ghost now right? And you work with ghosts so you can make it better again!"

She'd taken the bird away from him then and held him while he cried. She never told him, but she had tried to fix it. She spent weeks down in the lab trying to find the bird's ghost and a way to reconnect it to the little body. But her research had failed her.

"Maybe a small glass of water?" she asked him.

He nodded and disappeared back inside the RV. It was then that she recalled the piece of fabric she'd snatched off of Phantom and how she'd dropped it inside where it had fallen onto her white pillow—where Danny was sure to see it. The bit of black would stand out like a twinkling star against the night sky.

She scrambled to her feet and had taken three steps when Danny reemerged with a glass of water for her. Climbing down, he held it out to her.

"Here you go."

She took it and carefully raised it to her lips, taking a small sip. "Thanks." Maybe he hadn't seen the small strip of Phantom's suit. "It's late, Danny," she said, "Why don't you go back to bed? I'll be in soon."

"You shouldn't be out here alone," he said, his tone sharpening, suddenly becoming grave and serious.

She startled, quickly pulling the glass away from her mouth and causing a bit of water to slosh over the rim. The hardness in his voice surprised her—like that of someone who'd seen the horrors the world held, like someone who'd seen the dead. She'd never heard him speak that way before, at least not around her.

He seemed to realize his mistake and fumbled over words to correct himself. "I—I mean—" He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "That ghost," he said, sounding more unsure, "it got away, right? So it could come back?"

"Don't worry about me, sweetie." She offered him a reassuring smile and patted one of the many pockets in her jumpsuit. "If that scorpion ghost, or Phantom," she added, "do come back, I'm more than equipped to handle them."

He smiled hesitantly at her, but she noticed how he took a small step back out of her reach. "Uh, right," he said. "I'll just go back to bed then."

Climbing back inside their home for the week, he vanished from her sight. She stared down at the glass of water in her hands, thinking about both Danny and Phantom. She thought about what her son must have gone through—about what he was going through right now what with Phantom still around. Based on his grades, this had been going on for over a year, starting right around…

 _Danny's lab accident_.

Of course. That must have been when it happened. Danny, Sam, and Tucker all claimed that Danny had only gotten a shock—that he was fine. And maybe that was true, but there must have been a fourth person down in the lab that day. Someone who was most definitely not fine. Someone who was dead.

And the three of them knew. They'd known all along. Even before Phantom showed up. How had they kept such a thing secret? Why had Danny chosen not to tell her? Did he not trust her? How had nobody noticed when a child went missing?

Her thoughts returned to the images of Danny and a dead body and she downed the rest of the water in her hand in hopes of stopping anything from coming back up. No, she didn't know what happened. She didn't have all the facts. All she had was a scrap of fabric with the words "Fenton Jumpsuit" on it.

There could be a million explanations as to why Phantom had died in one of their jumpsuits. She turned back to the RV. Okay, maybe not a million, but there had to be more than one. She was going to find that one, the one that held the truth. And, if need be, she was going to do what she should have done when all this started: she was going to help Danny through this.

Stepping back inside the RV, she placed her empty glass on the dashboard to clean in the morning. She turned to her sleeping bag beside Jack and froze. The fabric, the piece of Phantom's suit, was gone. Her eyes flew to her son. He was the only one who could have taken it, who would have a reason to take it.

Danny laid with his back to her. Though his shoulders rose and fell with a steady rhythm, she knew he wasn't asleep. His body was too quiet, like that of a scared animal. He lay completely still. If she hadn't seen him breathing she'd have thought he was dead.


	3. knot

A/N: I am still stunned by the amount of favorites, follows, and reviews I'm getting over here. Thank you everyone! And thank you to _Sirrius the Moonblade_ for understanding the inevitable struggles of updating. At least I know you won't be upset with me if I can't keep to my schedule (I think...haha). Anyway, here's the next chapter and, as usual, I hope everyone enjoys!

* * *

By the time the sun rose the next morning, Maddie had decided to confront Danny. She'd barely slept, maybe an hour or two at most, and, judging by the lack of crinkles in her son's blankets, he hadn't gotten much more than that either. Knowing exhaustion wouldn't help any situation, she normally would have instructed Danny to get a few more hours of sleep (herself as well), but this wasn't something that could wait. She had already waited long enough. She needed that piece of fabric back and, more importantly, she and Danny needed to talk.

If only Danny wouldn't take so long to get ready. Did it really take him twenty minutes just to get dressed? He never seemed to take so long on school mornings. In fact, he always seemed to rush out with barely a good morning, and that was when she didn't have to drag him from the bed. Surely it didn't take—she glanced at the time—twenty-two minutes to put on a bathing suit and t-shirt.

Leaning closer to the locked door, she knocked. "Danny?" she called lightly.

"Mom!"

She turned at the universal name.

"There you are!" Jazz exclaimed, grabbing her arm and her attention.

"What is it, honey?" she asked. Her eyes turned back to the bathroom door.

"Let's take a walk on the beach," Jazz said, also eyeing the door.

"Maybe later?" Maddie listened for Danny. He should be coming out any second. "I really need to talk to your brother."

"But I really need to talk to you," her daughter insisted. "And it's been awhile since we've had some quality mother-daughter time. I was hoping for some during this vacation."

She smiled at her daughter, the girl who was a near replica of herself: smarts, looks, compassion. She couldn't deny Jazz's words. They did need to spend more time together.

"Please, Mom?" Jazz smiled hopefully. "It won't take long. You can still talk to Danny later."

Maddie glanced back at the door. Maybe Danny could wait.

She turned her attention to her only daughter. "Alright, honey, let's go."

Barely nine o'clock, and the sun was hot. Like hotter than her sister's old frying pan hot. And she swore that thing melted a bit every time she used it. Maddie could feel the sun coaxing the sweat from her pores and toasting the top layer of her skin. She hadn't put on sunscreen yet and, as pale as she was, she knew she'd be a tomato before lunch. Her only mercy was that she had remembered her flip-flops. Her worst spot was protected from the sun. Years ago, she'd burnt the bottoms of her feet. That was all it took: one time. And now she never walked the beach without something on her feet.

"So what did you want to talk about, Jazz?"

"I'm coming to a turning point in what is probably the most important stage of my life," Jazz explained while she walked. "As a young adult, I need to have the opportunity to discover who I am and who I want to be. College is the first time I'll be out living on my own, and I want to make sure I'm as prepared as I can be. However, with all the change in my life, I'll likely become nostalgic and wary, and seek comfort and advice from those close to me." Jazz gestured to Maddie. "I'll need your help and empathy. It might be a rough time."

Jazz had always been a little over-analytic, but her words were like echoes in Maddie's head. Hadn't she just been thinking about these same things, only in terms of Danny, a few minutes ago? Was she such a horrible mother that she had neglected not only her youngest child but also her eldest?

She had to start repairing her relationships with her children—she had to build back those bridges. And the first thing to do was to let them know she was there for them.

"Jazz, honey," Maddie said, interrupting her daughter, "you know you can always talk to me, right? About anything? I'm your mother. I love you no matter what."

Jazz's gaze fell to the sand at their feet. "You should be telling Danny that," she muttered.

"What was that?" Maddie was sure she'd heard her daughter correctly—even if Jazz hadn't exactly meant for her sentence to reach her ears—but she was hoping she would repeat it.

She didn't.

It confirmed a fear that had been twisting in her gut since the start of their conversation: Jazz didn't trust her. And, judging by her daughter's latest statement, neither did Danny. She didn't understand why. What had she done to lose them so severely?

"I know, Mom," Jazz assured her. "I love you too."

Her daughter's words rang true, but she still didn't choose to confide in her. Did Jazz, like Danny, have a secret she felt she couldn't trust her own mother with? Could they possibly have the same secret?

She stopped in her tracks, staring at the path ahead. Offhand comments, ones she'd disregarded earlier as nothing but a misguided enthusiasm, floated back into her memory. But Jazz was smart. She wasn't like other teenage girls who oftentimes blindly followed a trend for the sake of popularity. And perhaps Jazz's comments, the small ones in support of Phantom, hadn't been so offhand after all.

"Mom?"

Jazz stared back at her, a frown crinkling her forehead.

"Sorry, honey." Maddie smiled. "I thought I saw a dolphin."

Her daughter's gaze snapped to the ocean faster than a flip of a switch. "Where?"

She shook her head. "It was just a wave."

"Oh."

Jazz's shoulders slumped as they kept walking, but Maddie knew it was for show. Even with her shoulders down, Jazz's eyes were calculating, ready and stable. She felt her daughter's purple hued irises on her every few seconds. Jazz was obviously expecting something, and if Maddie really wanted to broach a topic, now would be the best time. But she had to be careful.

As of late, Jazz had been a bit more outspoken about her and Jack's "shoot first ask questions later" policy. If she knew anything about Danny's connection to Phantom, she likely wouldn't give up the information willingly. It would probably be best to start with something seemingly a little more innocent.

"Jazz?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"I was wondering," she started, chancing a glance at her daughter, "if you knew what happened to all of Danny's friends?"

A frown creased Jazz's forehead. "What do you mean?"

"I only ever see him hanging out with Sam and Tucker," she explained. "Didn't he used to have more friends before he got to high school?"

"I guess so." Jazz shrugged. "I don't know if you realize, Mom, but Danny hasn't always been one of the 'popular,'" she drew quotes in the air with her fingers, "kids. Besides, friends come and go. Sam and Tucker are good friends. He trusts them and they're always there for him."

Maddie nodded. The threesome did seem to have a healthy relationship. And Danny was always happy when he was around them.

"Why do you ask?" Jazz swung her arms as they walked along the beach, her hands brushing her sides.

"He doesn't talk to me anymore and I'm worried about him isolating himself."

A dark look crossed Jazz's face. "I don't think Danny will let that happen," she said seriously. "He knows going through life alone is no way to live."

She looked curiously at her daughter. There was more meaning behind Jazz's words than she perhaps intended to convey. Or, knowing her daughter and her tendency to lean closer to the complacency end of the modesty spectrum, it was more than likely Jazz knew exactly the amount of meaning she put in her words and had done so intentionally. But that didn't mean further inquiry would yield a better answer. Jazz was about as likely to spill a secret as Maddie's sister was to get remarried. Perhaps it was time to test the waters of another topic.

"Jazz?" she ventured again, trying to keep her tone neutral. "What do you know about Phantom?"

She watched as her daughter's stability suddenly turned to insecurity. Her choice of topic had touched a nerve, just as she suspected it would.

Using her shoulders as a distraction again, Jazz shrugged. "About as much as everyone else, I guess."

It wasn't much of an answer. Maddie pushed for more.

"And what's that?"

Jazz huffed. "You know, Mom. The gossip from school, the things they report on the news—stuff like that."

Maddie watched the news. She used to like how unbiased they remained on Phantom, instead choosing to show recent polls on the ghosts favorability. However, when his supporters grew exponentially, the local station changed their tune, spitting out phrases like "Amity Park's own super hero," which Maddie didn't approve of. In her opinion, super heroes weren't dead. Villains were.

She was more interested in the high school gossip. Though usually boarding outrageous and full of throaty sighs, every lie held a spark of truth.

"And what exactly do your peers say about him?"

"Mom, look, it's not like I talk to the guy on a regular basis." For reasons she couldn't fathom, Jazz smirked a little at her own words. "Why don't you stop beating around the bush and just tell me what you really want to know?" The smirk gone, Jazz cut her a look that told her she wasn't buying any of her concocted words.

Maddie resigned. She didn't know why she even tried fooling her daughter. But she wasn't about to tell her everything outright. While she yearned to know how much Jazz knew about what really happened during the lab accident, bringing up such topics would only elicit more lies. Instead, she settled for something a little less probing.

"What do you know about Phantom's suit?"

"Phantom's suit?" Jazz repeated.

She nodded. Her daughter hadn't shut her down yet. Perhaps she could get a little more out of her than she originally thought.

"Yes. Do you know where it came from? How he got it? What it's made of? Why is it black and white?"

At her last question, Jazz's eyes grew round like quarters.

"How would I know any of that?" Jazz asked quickly, her voice hitching an octave. "I told you I don't talk to him and you know he doesn't often talk to people. Unless he's saving them."

While it wasn't bursting with answers, the stuttered response was all the evidence Maddie needed. Somehow the answers to her questions were part of a big secret her daughter held close. While part of her was relieved to think that whatever was going on with Danny didn't involve ghosts, another part sunk in despair because her daughter was involved. New images snapped to the front of her mind, of a dead, human Phantom and a younger Jazz standing over him. Her stomach twisted and she was glad she hadn't had breakfast yet. She didn't want a repeat of last night.

Because she'd been wrong then. Danny didn't take the piece of fabric—Jazz did.

So did that mean Danny hadn't actually been there during the lab accident? But then why would he claim he was? Was he covering for his sister? If so that meant he knew about Phantom. Or maybe he had been there as she originally suspected. Either way both of her children knew more than she did and refused to share their information with her because of her opinions. Neither of them trusted her with Phantom. And they shouldn't. Not when so often she believed herself to be hunting Phantom or competing against him at the very least.

Her children didn't trust her enough to tell her so she would have to find out for herself. She had to discover the truth. For Jazz and Danny. She was their mother and it was about time she started acting like it.

She watched her daughter fiddle with the ends of her hair, a nervous habit.

"You're right, honey," she said. "I shouldn't have asked."


	4. Pull

**A/N: Thank you so much everyone for all of your reviews! And all the follows and all the favs I got. You are all incredible and I'm so happy you like this story. Some of you mentioned how you like the little details I put in and I really appreciate that, because I honestly feel like those things can be hit or miss. Also, some of you mentioned you like how Maddie is noticing a lot more than just the things surrounding Phantom. Watching the show, I always got the impression that Maddie was extremely smart and observant (when/where she wanted to be) and I wanted to make sure this came through. It's nice to know you guys see it too. Please continue to let me know what you think!**

 **Anyway, so next chapter, not a very exciting one but it's important. This is the last chapter I have completely written. After this all I have are just a bunch of incomplete scenes and notes, but don't worry! I will make sure there is a complete chapter for you next week, like I promised. I'm going to stop babbling now so you can just read the chapter like you really want.**

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Just as Maddie suspected, she was burnt by noon. But, aside from the ache across the back of her neck, she didn't mind. It gave her an excuse to stay in the RV while Jazz, Danny, and Jack spent the afternoon playing frisbee or, as Jack had renamed the game: "Fenton-Fris." Her husband had never been good with names—she had fought hard to get him to agree to Daniel—but reasoning with him on the naming of his inventions was pointless. Even if Danny was right and the game "Fenton-Fris" did sound like a family hair problem.

After applying aloe vera to her sunburnt skin, she began her search. She knew Jazz had taken the fabric strip. And yet…she'd originally suspected Danny. Maybe she should check his bag first, just in case the strip was there.

Danny's purple backpack sat innocently in the corner, slouched against the back wall of the RV. Despite its casual appearance, Maddie had the faintest feeling it was mocking her. A quick check out the window to make sure her family wasn't nearby, she unzipped the backpack. From it she pulled a change of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, Danny's cell phone—he had two new texts from Sam and one from Tucker—and…a pair of Fenton phones? What were they doing in his bag?

Maddie carefully set them aside and reached into the bottom of the backpack. Her hand wrapped around something cool and metal. A soup thermos?

No.

The light in the RV illuminated more than just the contents of her son's bag. It wasn't a soup thermos. She should have known. Nothing having to do with her family was ever what it seemed. And this was no exception. Hidden at the bottom of Danny's backpack was an old Fenton thermos. With a crack at the opening and dents all along the sides, the thermos had clearly seen better days.

She ran a finger over the scorch mark in the center of the thermos. The tentacley shape looked oddly familiar. She flash-backed to yesterday, to lining up her shot, to watching her ectoblast hit Phantom's hand—the one holding his stolen thermos. The thermos fell from her hands and dropped to the floor where it rolled to the front of the RV and hid beneath the passenger seat, cowering in sudden fear much like she was.

She was right.

Danny and Phantom—they were working together or knew each other or were somehow connected. She didn't know exactly which of the three, but the evidence she'd discovered was irrefutable. It had all started with Danny's lab accident, when Phantom had died.

She hadn't found the piece of Phantom's suit like she wanted, but she still had another bag to check. And if she found it in Jazz's, then she knew both her children were in line with Phantom.

With a steady breath, Maddie fetched the broken thermos and returned it to her son's backpack. She couldn't dwell on what its presence meant. Not now. She'd have to store the clue in the back of her mind to revisit later.

 _One down, one to go_ , she thought.

Jazz's backpack was heavier than Danny's. One peek inside told her why: Jazz had brought three hardcover books with her on the trip, all probably around 400 pages. She pulled one from the bag. "The Psychological Self" the title read, "A Psychologist's Guide to Separating One's Identity from the Patient's."

She smiled. Only Jazz would bring such heavy reading on vacation.

Setting the books aside without so much as a glance at the other titles, she continued rifling through her daughter's stuff. In the back of her mind, a voice reminded her this was an invasion of privacy, a violation of the shaky trust she had with her children. Except that was the problem. Their trust was already shaken, and she had no idea why. The first step towards healing was to discover what the problem was. Only the truth would allow them to move forward.

Her fingers skimmed something smooth and familiar. From the shadows of the inside of the bag, she pulled a piece of hardware. Her latest invention. With wires still out in the open, it was incomplete. But that was only because it had mysteriously gone missing from the lab before she could finish it, before she'd even gotten a chance to name it. And now she'd found it in Jazz's backpack. Her daughter had taken it…but why?

She recalled the Saturday morning Jazz had bounced down the basement steps, eyes scouring the lab. When Jazz had plopped herself down on a stool beside her, she hadn't thought anything of it. And when her daughter started asking questions about the invention Maddie was working on, she had happily answered them. After all, it wasn't often her children took interest in her work. At least not in the way Jazz had that morning.

Normally her questions ended after "what is it," "what's it supposed to do," and "does it work?" But not that morning. She spent a better part of three hours down there with Jazz, working and talking about her invention.

She told her daughter how the new piece of equipment would greatly tip the scales of ghost hunting in their favor—how the invention was designed to not only track ghosts but show them in whatever form the ghost possessed. No longer would ghosts be able to take over a human body without her knowing. Any form the ghost took—human or ectoplasmic—would be detectable. And, she'd explained to Jazz, not only would they be able to find the ghost, once the ghost's ectosignature was recorded, the device would use the ectosignature to actually create and display an image of the form the ghost took.

The instantaneous production of an image had been the special something about her new device. And that morning, it hadn't just been her enthusiasm leaking out into the lab. Jazz had seemed genuinely excited about the invention, even happy for her. She could remember her daughter bouncing around the lab, even shaking in anticipation. Unless she'd misread Jazz and the girl wasn't quivering with excitement but fear.

One of the open wires snagged the skin beside her nail. She snatched her hand away from the device. Blood bubbled on her finger. Staring at the invention, she absentmindedly sucked the blood away.

Why had Jazz felt the need to steal the invention from her? Did she think she was protecting someone? A ghost? But why? Or did Jazz somehow think she was protecting her by taking away the new device? And if that was the case, what was she protecting her from? What was she getting herself into? Did she really know so little about Danny and Jazz?

Her children were more deeply involved than she originally thought. She could see how her conversation with Jazz that Saturday morning had been nothing more than a ruse. A plan to get information out of her so she could steal the invention when Maddie turned her back. She wondered if their conversation this morning had had an ulterior motive as well. And if it did, what was it?

She held onto her invention. She'd stow it in a safe place this time, away from her children. That thought scared her. She didn't want to keep things from Danny and Jazz. The ability to share her life's work with them had been one of her reasons for working from home. Hiding such things didn't sit well with her. But wasn't she already doing that? She hadn't told either of them about the piece of Phantom's suit she'd snatched or any of the suspicions floating around inside her head.

If she learned why Phantom's suit had the name "Fenton" stitched into it, then she would tell her children her concerns, she swore to herself. But first, she wanted the truth.

Switching hands, she reached further into her daughter's bag, her fingers following the inner seams to the bottom of the backpack. Crumbs, dust, and other small remnants of previous space holders congregated at the tips of her fingers. A single swipe of something smooth and cool to the touch, knocked away some of those remnants. Retracing her motions, she felt around for the stray object. She skimmed it again and froze. Could it be? Resolve filled her. She wouldn't know unless she looked. Taking the thin, silky thing between her thumb and index finger, she grew more sure of herself.

Careful not to lose her grip, Maddie pulled the familiar piece of fabric from the dark confines of the bag, revealing the scrap of Phantom's suit to the entirety of the assault vehicle. And as she did so, her heart shriveled up. Part of her had still hoped she wouldn't find it in Jazz's bag, that by not finding it among her daughter's things would mean Jazz wasn't involved like Danny was—that she at least didn't have to worry about one of her children.

Smoothing the fabric out over her knee, she knew it had been foolish of her to hope for such things. She'd wanted to share her work with her children, to get them to understand her passion. Perhaps she and Jack had been a little too insistent that Danny and Jazz join the family business. She'd always thought they had no interest, but she'd obviously been wrong. She traced the "Fenton" logo with her finger. Very wrong. They were interested, just in a different way. And now she wasn't so sure which way was better. Surely, as their mother, she would know best but, she wasn't so sure of herself anymore. Her children were smart. They knew the difference between right and wrong.

Somehow, someway, her children had aligned themselves with a ghost. A powerful ghost too. She needed to find out why. Just how deep did Danny's connection to Phantom run? And what role did Jazz play? Her daughter had taken the piece of fabric from her for a reason. That reason was perhaps just as important as the scrap of Phantom's suit she'd snagged.

She stared over at the invention she'd reclaimed from Jazz then back at the shred of fabric in her hand. Jazz might not notice the piece of Phantom's suit missing from her bag—it was so small—but she'd definitely notice the invention gone. Would such a realization help or hurt her in her search for the truth? She knew Jazz wouldn't be happy she'd rifled through her things, but if she learned what Maddie had discovered would she simply come to her and tell her the truth? She thought back to their conversation earlier.

 _You should be telling Danny that,_ Jazz had muttered under her breath.

Whatever was going on, Jazz wasn't going to be the one to tell her. Odds were, if she brought her suspicions to her daughter, she'd only tell her to speak to Danny. And she already knew she needed to do that. She only worried that if she went to him with false accusations he'd be just as closed off as ever. As it was, anytime she brought up his lab accident in conversation, he'd run from the room. Even when it first happened, she and Jack had been pulling teeth to get him to tell them about it.

No. It was better if neither of her children knew what she was doing until she had something more concrete. And that meant she couldn't take back her invention just yet. Sighing, she picked up the device and put it in Jazz's backpack, placing it, along with all her books, back the way she'd found them. The scrap with the tag had really been all she wanted anyway.

Maddie brought the black and white silk closer to her face for further inspection. Woven into the fabric above those damning words was what looked like a stray thread. Using her nails, she plucked at the end of the white thread and pulled it from the fabric. It was thinner and less conforming than thread.

She wanted to examine the string and the fabric more, but she knew she'd already spent too much time in the RV. It wouldn't be long before one of her family members came to check on her. Her search for the truth would have to wait. Another sleepless night wouldn't bother her.

A crash reached her ears, muted by the thick walls of the RV. But even with the added protection of the assault vehicle, Maddie knew the crash was much too loud for it to be part of her family's game of "Fenton-Fris." Sealing the piece of fabric and string inside the pocket of her jumpsuit, she rushed to the window.

The scorpion ghost had returned.


	5. a

**THANK YOU. Yes, you.**

 **Also, a special thanks to** _ReconstructWriter_ **who always leaves long, thoughtful reviews: your reviews (and you) are awesome. Actually, everyone's reviews are awesome. Everyone is awesome. _Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part..._ okay, I'm getting carried away over here.**

 **Wow, this chapter ended up being longer than I expected. I thought I'd be struggling to get to just 2,000 words, but look! Over 3,000! Woohoo! Anyway, you guys don't really care about word counts. You only care about the actual words on the page and I don't blame you. So here you go! Keep being awesome!**

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She could hear it all.

The hiss of the scorpion. The pinging rain of pebbles against other stones when the scorpion's ectoblast hit the rocky beach. The thunder in the ground as Jack rushed to confront the attacking beast. Jazz's shout of "Dad, look out!" And her husband's exuberant response: "I'll get him before he gets me!"

But Maddie's mind still won the race, her thoughts shooting faster than any of the ones flying outside.

If the scorpion was back, she knew Phantom wouldn't be far behind. She had to act, and this time she would be prepared. She'd bring the Fenton Ecto-Net out with her this time. She would be ready for him. All she'd have to do is get close enough to Phantom to throw the net over him and he'd be hers to study and interrogate. And then she might finally get the answers she wanted out of him. She might finally get the answers she wanted out of her children.

An image of Danny and Jazz's faces when she caught Phantom snaked to the front of her mind. Fear, anger, defeat, disappointment, even a few tears. Their expressions in her imagination shifted continuously, but none of the ones she saw were content. What if capturing Phantom hurt her chances of reconnecting with Danny and Jazz?

Maddie hesitated, pulling her hand away from her head.

What would happen if she didn't rush to action? Perhaps it would be more beneficial if she sat out this fight. She might learn a lot more by observing than by participating. Catching Phantom was still high up on her to-do list, but, right now, learning the truth about his connection to her children—to Danny in particular—took precedence.

With great deliberation, she took a seat, settling in to observe the fight from inside the RV. Jack could handle the ghost this time. And if he couldn't, she knew Phantom would.

The whole concept of sitting back and doing nothing was foreign to her. She clenched and unclenched her hands, running her thumbs along her other fingers. Her toes tapped at the floor, soft tips compared to the noise building outside. Unable to expend it on a battle, her pent-up energy kept her fidgeting. She turned her palms to the ceiling and slid them beneath her thighs, hoping it would be enough to keep her in place.

Never before had she purposely decided not to act in battle for the sole purpose of monitoring a ghost's actions. Whenever news of a ghost attack spread, she and Jack were out the door before anyone could say another word. She hadn't even watched Phantom on T.V. for more than a few seconds. Studying how he fought, and possibly even getting the chance to see what he did and where he went once the fight was over, could give her the valuable information she needed to piece everything together.

So now, all she had to do was wait for him to show up.

The passenger door flew open and Danny jumped in the RV, closing the door behind him. The assault vehicle shook from the amount of force he used to slam the door. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides and, if Maddie didn't know any better (and she wasn't so sure she did anymore), he looked like he was preparing himself for a fight.

"I'm going—oh, Mom," Danny stumbled, his words catching in his throat when he caught sight of her in the back of the RV. "You're—uh—still here?"

She smiled reassuringly at him, shifting position and sliding her hands out from under her. "Of course, sweetie."

He stared at her for only a second before looking away, seemingly unable to hold her gaze. His blue eyes swept back to the front window, the sounds of the attacking ghost outside appearing to demand his attention. Behind him, the insert for the DNA security lock blinked, ticking away the seconds of silence.

He turned back to look at her again, confusion and ill-ease making his body tense. A hand reached up to absently rub at the back of his neck.

"You do know there's a ghost outside, right?" he asked, eyes again pulling to the window.

She did. But she didn't want to run out there, especially when Phantom hadn't even shown up yet. Where was he?

He was late. The thought unsettled her. It was extremely rare for Phantom to miss a ghost fight. And he was never late to one. _She_ was only ever the late one. But, late or not, she always showed up. Just as she could count on Phantom to do the same.

She stared at her son. His nerves seemed to be getting the better of him as his fingers twitched and the hand at his neck began to shake. She's always assumed ghosts made him anxious, but she now knew that wasn't exactly the case. Maybe he was worried about Jack out there all alone, or maybe he was worried about Phantom not showing up yet. Either way, she'd never seen him this worked up before. And her not leaping to action probably wasn't helping. He was counting on her to fight.

It would be out of character for her to openly choose not to engage in a ghost attack. The fact that she was still sitting calmly in the RV while an obvious battle raged outside clearly unsettled Danny. If she continued to sit here, he'd grow suspicious of her and possibly even guard the secrets he was holding closer. She had to act normal, even if doing so meant compromising a promising opportunity to learn.

Standing up, she strode over to the security lock and plucked a hair from her head. With a ping and the hum of her name, the doors to the weapons vault opened for her.

"I'm going to go help your father," she told him.

Danny let his hand drop, pulling both behind his back instead. The stress in his shoulders fell away as relief eased the wrinkles on his forehead.

"Yeah, okay," he breathed.

"Where's Jazz?"

Danny glanced back in the direction of the ghost attack.

"Is she still out there?" Maddie demanded.

"Yeah, she is," Danny said, nodding fervently.

She'd barely plucked a weapon from its hook on the vault wall when she felt two hands against her back. Her initial resistance was strong, but, somehow, Danny was stronger, and she stumbled a bit as he pushed her towards the door.

"And she's my only sister who I love and don't know what I'd do without," Danny was rambling, "so you better get out there and save her for me, okay?"

She frowned. Danny had never shown this much concern for Jazz before. And he certainly never admitted to loving her. It was something her children refused to openly acknowledge. So why would he say it now?

The feeling of being lied to tickled the hairs on the back of her neck. Danny was up to something. Maybe if she…

"Let go of me!"

Jazz's shrill scream hit them both like a tidal wave. Maddie immediately stopped questioning her son's actions and sprinted into battle to save her daughter, locking the assault vehicle with Danny inside behind her.

The scene before her was not one she was expecting. The numerous ectoguns Jack kept concealed in his jumpsuit lay scattered on the ground. Jack had abandoned the guns, favoring his Fenton fisher instead. She knew why immediately.

While exuberant and passionate, Jack was aware of his flaws. He knew his emotions could sometimes get in the way of their success—it was one of the reasons why he was willing to step back every now and then and trust her take down the ghost. They knew each other's strengths and weaknesses about as well as they knew their own, which was why they worked so well together.

This situation was no different. Jack knew he didn't have the best aim (she still wanted to work with him on that) and he wasn't about to risk shooting at the scorpion only to accidentally hit Jazz. And, at the moment, the possibility of hitting Jazz was greater than Maddie would have liked.

Glowing, green pinchers were locked around Jazz's waist, allowing the teen minimal movement. But that didn't mean the ghost's movement was restricted. The scorpion ghost, hissed at her when Maddie approached, raising its pinchers and subsequently raising her daughter as well.

Reeling in the Fenton fisher, Jack turned to her. "Maddie, it has Jazz," he said, desperation hanging in his tone, "what do we do?"

She stared over at her husband and then up at the ghost. Jack was relying on her. Jazz was relying on her. Even Danny, locked away in the assault vehicle, was relying on her. And to think she'd considered sitting this fight out.

"Hey ugly!" a familiar voice called out.

Maddie turned at the sound and watched as Phantom rushed in, immediately grabbing the scorpion's attention. She was slightly shocked to find a feeling of relief wash through her over Phantom's sudden appearance. Watching him, she realized the feeling wasn't unwarranted.

Phantom zipped around the scorpion, avoiding the animal's jabbing stinger and managing to get in a few shots. But what Maddie really appreciated was how Phantom took the scorpion's attention off of Jazz. As he darted around the other ghost, evading the snapping of its remaining pincher and taunting it, the scorpion's anger and frustration grew. Its grip on Jazz loosened as it once again reached for Phantom.

Still, Jazz had never been one to sit back and do nothing, and the emergence of Phantom seemed to renew her daughter's vigor. Maddie watched as Jazz twisted around in the scorpion's grip and, swung her leg out.

"Jazz, no!" Phantom yelled, but his warning came too late. With her right foot, Jazz nailed a hard kick right in the scorpion's eye.

The ghost hissed and spat, its focus immediately zeroing in on its capture. Jazz struggled to no avail, her body flailing, her movements powerless against the scorpion.

She couldn't just stand there and watch a ghost crush her daughter to death. She had to do something. Raising her gun, she took aim. Jack was too afraid to shoot because he could hit Jazz. But she didn't have Jack's poor aim. Her's was near perfect. Perhaps near perfect would be enough…

The sun shone brightly, the crashing ocean beside them, scattered the light across the beach. One ray snagged the thermos in Phantom's hand. It reflected the light like it was freshly polished, even brand new. And it had to be, because, as Maddie recalled, she'd damaged his in the last battle.

With a start, she recognized the new thermos as further proof of his connection to her family.

"I have to end this," she heard Phantom mutter as he uncapped the thermos.

He was right. One of them had to end this fight now. Jazz wasn't going to last much longer.

Maddie turned and set her sights on the scorpion. At the same time, both she and Phantom shot an ectoblast at the other ghost. While the scorpion absorbed Phantom's blast, throwing it back at him, it couldn't absorb hers at the same time. The green energy barreled toward the scorpion until it hit it directly between the eyes The shot set it off balance and the scorpion released its grip on Jazz. Maddie watched as her daughter fell the ten feet to the ground and rolled to her side, clutching herself around the middle.

"Jazz!" she yelled, rushing to her daughter and enveloping her in a tight hug. "Jazz! Are you alright?"

Jazz smiled against her shoulder. "Yeah, I'm fine, Mom."

She pulled back, eyes inspecting every inch of her daughter's skin as she ran a hand through her tangled, red hair.

Above them, a whine of electricity sounded as Phantom activated the thermos and pointed it towards the scorpion ghost. A blue light engulfed the ghost and its form faded away as it was sucked into the thermos. The light flickered out and Phantom smugly replaced the lid on the thermos.

Jazz pulled Maddie's hand away from her head.

"Mom," she said, catching her eye, "I'm okay, I promise. Just a few cuts and bruises."

Maddie nodded, smiling as she rubbed away a spot of blood on Jazz's cheek.

"I going to make sure Danny's okay now," she said. "He was pretty upset when I left him."

The color drained from Jazz's face, her eyes finding Phantom in the sky. "Wait, but Mom, Phantom's still here. Don't you want to catch him?"

"Yeah, Mads!" Jack exclaimed. "He's right there! Let's get him!"

Maddie glanced up at the celebrating ghost, taking note of how the spot where she'd torn the tag from his suit had mended itself, before stowing her ectogun in the holster at her hip.

"Phantom can wait, Danny is who's important."

Jack nodded. "You're right," he said. "Did you see the way Jazzypants kicked that ghost right in the eye? I always knew my girl was a fighter!" Grabbing Jazz around the waist, he pulled her towards him in what had to be a bone-crushing hug. "You check on Danny, Mads, Jazz and I will catch Phantom for you."

She smiled while her daughter only scowled, trying (and failing) to push herself away from her father. Turning on her toes, she headed back to the RV. She could hear Jazz struggling behind her, again trying to get her to stop.

"Mom!" she called. "Mom! Wait!"

She didn't wait. Jazz was hiding something from her again. She didn't know what it was this time, but she was going to find out. And she already had a suspicion. Because Danny had been trying to hide something from her too, before she ran after the scorpion ghost—before Phantom showed up to the fight with that thermos.

Throwing open the door, she climbed inside and headed straight for the panel at the front of the vehicle.

Knowing what she did now, it was more likely Phantom hadn't stolen the thermos like she originally suspected but had been given one. And if he'd been given one that meant either Danny or Jazz had to have taken it from the weapons vault. Because no one besides a Fenton could get past their DNA security lock.

Jazz rushed at the open door, scrambling inside

"He took it," she breathed staring at the blinking light behind the lock's insert for DNA.

"What are you talking about, Mom?" Jazz asked breathlessly.

Maddie plucked a hair from her head and allowed the slot to suck it up. Accepting the offer, the machine spoke her name and revealed their array of weapons. Just as she suspected, the spot for the thermos was empty.

She pointed to the outline, her eyes gaging her daughter's reaction. "The thermos is gone," she said. "Phantom stole it."

Jazz shifted under Maddie's intense gaze, squirming in unease. "He might not have stolen it," she said. "Maybe it was left out and he found it?"

She shook her head. Both she and Jazz knew that wasn't the case.

"No, it was there when I retrieved my weapon. He stole it."

Jazz wormed her way around Maddie, heading towards the door. "Well, he obviously needed it to catch that scorpion ghost after you broke the one he already had," Jazz said, her shoulders hunched as she bent down.

She glanced at her daughter. How did she know that? Had she been through Danny's stuff too or had Danny simply told her about Phantom's broken thermos?

"Still," Maddie said, using her parental voice, "he shouldn't have stolen it."

Jazz straightened. "What would you have him do, Mom?" she asked, her voice rising. "Come up and politely ask you if he can borrow your thermos? How can he when you're 'shoot first, talk later?' Would you have even given him the thermos if he asked you for it?"

"Of course not," she said. "He's a ghost."

"Exactly."

Maddie stared at her daughter. She knew Jazz cared about Phantom, but she had no idea how much until now. Each time she accused Phantom of stealing, Jazz became more and more defensive of him.

"I wonder how Phantom got into the vault," she mused aloud, more for the sake of Jazz's response than her own wonderings. She knew one of her children had accessed the weapons to retrieve the thermos for Phantom. She wanted to know which one. So far, Jazz's nerves were making her the favorable guess.

Her daughter shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe the vault was left open," she suggested and moved to leave the RV. "You know how Danny is always forgetting to do things like his chores. Maybe he forgot to close the vault."

Danny.

She turned slowly, eyes taking in the expansive space behind her daughter. The empty space. Danny wasn't here. There was only one place someone could hide in the Fenton Family assault vehicle, the bathroom being that one place. And currently, with the door wide open, she had a clear view into the bare room.

Danny was gone. But that was impossible. She'd locked him inside to make sure he was safe during the ghost attack. Unless a certain ghost had let him out.

"Yeah, maybe," she said, openly agreeing with Jazz.

But they both knew how the DNA security lock worked: once a weapon was taken only five seconds passed before the doors closed again. Maddie had watched them close before rushing off to battle. The only way Phantom could have gotten the thermos was if Danny or Jazz had used their DNA to access it for him. Because there was no way he could have gotten in on his own. Right?


	6. thread

**Wow, 23 reviews for one chapter? I feel so incredibly lucky to have all of you as my readers. The Phandom is truly amazing and I love being a part of it. Seriously, thank you.**

 **Also, as the author here, I feel the need to update you on what's to come. After this chapter, there will only be three more until the end. Only three? Oh no! What's going to happen? Will Maddie learn Danny's secret or not? Honestly, I don't know. I haven't written it yet. Which brings me to my next point. I don't have anything after this written. And while I'd like to believe I can get out a new chapter by next week (like I told you I would), I'm not sure that'll happen this time. However, I do promise to try. If there isn't a new chapter next Wednesday then you can definitely expect one the Wednesday after that. Alright enough about what's to come. How about what's already here? New chapter alert! Hope you enjoy this one!**

* * *

It didn't take her long to find Danny.

He turned up, right outside the RV, smiling wide and acting like nothing was wrong. He held his hands behind him, rocking back and forth between his toes and his heels.

"Is everyone okay?" he asked.

Maddie felt her anger, frustration, and concern coming to a point—a rather sharp one. How could he just stand there and act like everything was fine when it obviously was not?

She jumped down from the RV, her feet making implants amongst the beach pebbles. Her anger fueled her walk towards him, but the stones beneath her feet made it difficult to stomp.

"Where were—" she started but the rest of her words were drowned out.

"Danny!" Jack exclaimed, rushing him. He slapped their son on the back perhaps a little too hard as Danny stumbled forward a bit. "You missed it!"

"Missed what?"

Jazz now climbing down from the RV as well was swept off her feet, when Jack grabbed her and pulled her to Danny's side.

"Your sister, here," Jack said, eyeing her proudly, "fought back when that nasty ghost tried to take her. Landed a blow right in the monster's eye!" Leaning closer to the two teens, he said in a lower voice, "You'll have to get her to teach you a few things, Danny. Once you can fight like Jazz then we can all go out ghost hunting together! Won't that be great?"

Danny pulled his arms around to his front, crossing them over his chest. Making eye contact with Jazz, he said, "Dad, I really don't want to fight like Jazz."

Maddie picked up on an unsaid message that seemed to pass between her two children, a message Jack either didn't notice or decidedly ignored.

"Nonsense!" Jack boomed, his voice rising again. "Today Jazz fought like true Fenton and who wouldn't want that?"

Both Danny and Jazz groaned at Jack's words, but Maddie was more concerned with how Danny was standing before her right now. She was sure she'd locked him in the RV, knowing he'd be safe there since she'd also activated half the ghost shield and thereby ensuring now ghosts couldn't get in. So there was no way Phantom could have gotten into the RV and no way Danny could have gotten out—unless her son had suddenly become some lock-picking expert.

It was an idea she didn't immediately throw out as it would partially explain how he always managed to find a way out of inescapable places. But throw it away she did, mostly because her gut told her there was another explanation, one she would discover only if she kept digging.

There were so many things she'd learned over the past couple days, but she didn't have an explanation for any of them.

Her children knew Phantom—they were somehow connected to him. She'd seen proof of this through many things. Such as when Phantom sought to save Jazz from the scorpion ghost and how Jazz constantly tried to defend his actions. But then, Maddie remembered, replaying the recent fight in her head, Jazz had insisted she capture Phantom once she was safe. She wanted to believe her daughter was "coming to her senses" in a way, but, given everything she'd picked up on lately, she knew she couldn't hope for such things.

And then there was Danny.

His connection to Phantom was stronger than Jazz's. What with him giving Phantom a new thermos and magically escaping from a locked vehicle with what was more than likely some form of ghostly assistance. He was also the one who claimed to have been involved with the lab accident, which was when she suspected Phantom died. And of course there was the scrap of fabric she'd snatched off of Phantom. The one fact she had in all her speculation. Because she couldn't deny the Fenton tag on the piece of black jumpsuit.

She knew what she needed to do next. The question had been weighing in the back of her mind ever since she realized what that Fenton logo meant. Danny and Jazz certainly weren't going to tell her so she'd have to conduct her own research. Because one answer could be all it took to tie everything together for her. One name.

She had to find out who'd been wearing that jumpsuit during the lab accident.

For the rest of the day, Maddie tried to act normal. She tried to pretend everything was normal. Except, she realized as the day dragged on, she couldn't remember what normal looked like. Did she normally flip the hamburgers with her right hand or her left? Would she normally have chosen Danny for her volleyball team or was she singling him out because she knew something was up? Did she normally wring her hands together to the point where she suspected she'd have bruises in the morning?

She looked up from her book—she hadn't turned a page since she'd picked it up—and eyed Danny down by the water with Jack. He seemed happy to be able to sit and relax with his father. The two had always bonded around fishing—the sport connecting them in a way she couldn't fully understand. They never seemed to talk while they fished, instead content to sit in silence and wait for that one hook. She'd tried to go over and talk to them, but had been adamantly shushed when she opened her mouth. It was clear they didn't want to be disturbed.

So she sat with beside Jazz, attempting to read the book her daughter bought her for mother's day earlier in the year. But with all that was on her mind, she found it impossible to focus on the analyzation of a ghost's psyche.

A shout from Danny and an exclamation of "Way to go Danny-boy!" from Jack had her eyes off the page once again. Yards away, Danny yanked and pulled, straining himself to bring in the catch snagged on his hook.

"You got 'im, Danny!" Jack yelled. "Reel 'im in!"

With another hard yank, the end of Danny's line shot out of the water. Tan and amber scales gleamed in the light of the setting sun as the fish flopped about on the dry land.

"That's haddock, right Dad?" Danny asked.

Jack grabbed the fishing line, pulling the fish up off the ground to inspect it. "You're right Danny," he said. "Looks like a good one too! Why don't you go grab the gutting supplies and I'll set up the campfire? We can have it for dinner tonight."

Danny smiled wide, eyes taking in his catch. "Sure, Dad. That sounds great!"

It was easy to see the excitement brewing in him as he raced back up the beach towards the RV.

Jazz shifted in her seat, drawing Maddie's attention. A frown teased her daughter's lips.

"I'll be right back," Jazz told her, standing up and setting her own book down on the chair.

Maddie glanced between her husband, busy with their fresh catch, and her two children, sneaking around the other side of the RV. In a split second, she made her decision and, not bothering to save her page, she left her book in her chair, following Danny and Jazz.

She kept her steps soft and slow as she approached the RV, wondering exactly what she would come up on. But when she heard their voices, she froze.

"What were you thinking earlier?" Jazz demanded, her voice haughty.

Danny shrugged her off, walking around her to their supplies at the back of the RV.

"Jazz," he said, "I know I screwed up. I don't need a lecture."

"Danny, she knows there's a thermos missing from the assault vehicle," Jazz spat in whispers, "and you know who she suspects, don't you?"

With a start that nearly made her lose her footing, Maddie realized they were talking about her. She peeked around the corner and, spotting her children together, slunk back out of sight. Spying on them felt wrong in so many ways, but she didn't know what else she could do. They weren't going to come to her because they didn't trust her. Maybe they were right not to.

"What was I supposed to do, Jazz?" Danny shot back, not quite as quiet as his big sister. "I can't catch the ghost without one."

"I know that, but you should have at least put the thermos back when you were done. That way she wouldn't suspect anything."

Danny rolled his head, his eyes easily following it. "Yes, Jazz, that's a great idea. Let's put the thermos with a hostile ghost inside back in our family's weapons closet where our ghost-hunting parents are likely to find it and then use a scalpel to dissect it. Besides, you saw how I didn't make it back in time anyway."

"Yes, good going there. But Danny, come on, you couldn't have let them catch this one?" Jazz asked. "You know it would have made them really happy. And maybe have gotten them off your back a bit. It's not like the scorpion was intelligent like Ember or Skulker."

Danny's eyebrows drew closer together, making his eyes look darker than they really were. "Remember Vlad's experiments? I'm sure he thought it didn't matter what he did to those ghosts either because they weren't intelligent like us." he said. "I _won't_ be like Vlad."

"Right, sorry. I see your point." Jazz eyed him, a smirk forming at her lips. "You don't have to get so worked up about it though."

Danny sighed, running a hand over the top of his head. "Sorry. It's just, I really wanted this to be a real vacation—one where I didn't have to worry about ghosts."

Jazz put a hand on his shoulder. "I know, little brother, I know."

Maddie sank back against the side of the RV. What was she supposed to make of that? Her son wasn't just helping Phantom but also fighting ghosts behind her back and her daughter was helping him cover it up? But why? Why would either of them hide such a thing when that was exactly what she and Jack did professionally? She repeated Danny's words over and over in her head.

 _Where our ghost-hunting parents are likely to find it and then use a scalpel to dissect it._

The way he'd said that, it was almost as if he hated the thought. Like he felt the need to protect the ghost from her and Jack, even if he had captured it. But why protect a ghost at all? Especially one he would admit to be hostile?

Wait. What was she saying? Weren't all ghosts hostile? Hadn't she determined that over and over by the number of ghosts she'd seen attacking the town? She could count the number of times she'd come across a friendly ghost on one hand, and that was because the number was zero.

"And that's why I'll always cover for you," Jazz continued. "You already worry too much as it is, you don't need to worry about Mom studying a scrap of your suit."

Danny nodded distractedly, but he jerked his head up when Jazz's words settled in. "Wait, what?"

Jazz squeezed his shoulder. "I told you, little brother, you don't have to worry. I took care of it."

"So she doesn't know anything?"

"Other than your suit regenerates?" Jazz shook her head. "I don't think she got to run any of the tests she wanted before I stole it. She tried asking me all these questions this morning, but I told her I didn't know anything."

Danny took a deep breath in. "Yeah, okay. Thanks Jazz."

"Anytime." She bit her lip. "I'll always protect you, Danny, but—"

"Don't say it," Danny interrupted her, holding up a hand.

Jazz frowned, placing her hands on her hips. "You should tell them."

Maddie watched her son raise his eyebrows at his older sister in what was a very familiar expression.

"Why?" he asked. "So they can pull me apart 'molecule by molecule?'" He pinched his fingers together and pulled them away from each other.

"They love you, Danny," Jazz said. "They'll understand. Especially Mom."

"Oh, I'm sure they'll understand. They'll jump at the chance to understand. They'll want to understand so much, I'll end up strapped to an examination table." Danny crossed his arms and turned away from Jazz.

Examination table? Why would she ever do such a thing to her son? Why would he think she would?

Maddie shrunk further into the shadows. She didn't want them to see her spying. Although she wasn't sure there was a point—surely her frantic heartbeat could be heard a mile away.

Jazz took a step closer to Danny, reaching out to him. "Just this morning Mom told me she would love me no matter what."

Danny shrugged Jazz off. "Yeah, she said that to _you_ , Jazz. _You're_ normal. I'm not—not anymore." He sighed, looking so defeated. "Can you just drop it? I'm gonna go make sure Dad doesn't burn the fish…or put ectoplasm in it."

He his back to his sister, but her voice made him pause.

"Danny?"

"Please just leave it, Jazz. I don't want to argue—"

She stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. This time he didn't push her away.

"It's not that," she said, a wry smile on her face. "It's just…we're on vacation. I don't think we have to worry about Mom or Dad contaminating our food."

Eyes downcast, Maddie watched shadows crisscross Danny's expression. "I didn't think I had to worry about them contaminating me either," he said lowly. Jazz squeezed his shoulder comfortingly and he shook his head.

"Sorry," he said, glancing up at his sister. "I mean we should still watch out." A small smile found its way onto his face. "You never know what Dad's got hidden in his pockets."

Hands in his own pockets, Danny stalked off in the direction of the campfire.

Maddie was a scientist. She studied the evidence and used that evidence to reach a logical conclusion. But this…this didn't have a logical conclusion. There wasn't anything logical about this.

An impossibly crazy theory was beginning to take root in Maddie's mind. Because she knew what she'd heard. Neither of her children had mentioned Phantom once in their entire conversation. And more than once Jazz and Danny had referred to the piece of Phantom's suit as belonging to Danny. Jack had had a suit made for Danny, just as he'd had one made for Jazz. And, unlike Jazz's, it actually fit Danny. Maddie hadn't seen the jumpsuit in ages. She wondered what had happened to it, and feared she already knew. But she wasn't about to jump to conclusions. She needed a way to test her hypothesis before she let her theory take over. And to do that she needed to talk to Jack.


	7. Watch

**I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!**

 **I'm sooooooo sorry this chapter is a day late. Two weeks. I had two weeks to get this chapter to you. I thought "I can totally do it in two weeks." Then yesterday came around and I realized "I can't totally do it in two weeks." Sorry.**

 **But thank you for all your incredible reviews! I read every single one (usually more than once) because I want to make sure I'm taking into account everything you are telling me. Also, thanks to everyone who is following and favoriting. I've never had so many people reading my story before. It's an honor.**

 **Anyway, here's the next chapter. Hope it's worth the wait!**

* * *

While the rest of her family busied themselves outside in preparation of a freshly caught (and cooked) dinner, Maddie snuck away to the RV again. Using the internet they'd hooked up in the vehicle, she searched for the information that might tell her who else had been there during the lab accident. After only half an hour, she had three names written down.

Three names.

That was all that stood between her and the truth. After all that had happened, all she had learned, that was it—three names.

Joseph Miller

Kyle Gronkowski

Devon Tames

Those three names were the only remaining supports holding up the barrier in her mind. The one keeping her crazy theory from taking over. She needed those names. But it was more than that. She needed one of the people behind the name to fit the incongruous circumstances surrounding the accident that had taken place in the lab.

And she knew what that meant she was really hoping for: she was hoping to discover one of the boys behind the name was dead. She wanted a child to be dead. It was a terrible thought. But one she couldn't stop.

It was also one she refused to stop. Because if she did then she'd have to consider a worse alternative. And she couldn't go there. Not with Danny. Not with her son.

So she hung onto those three names like life vests in a storm. They were the things keeping her afloat while she sat with Danny, Jazz, and Jack for dinner, when she commented on how well Jack and Danny had cooked the fish, how proud she was of Danny for catching something so big.

Joseph Miller

Kyle Gronkowski

Devon Tames

She still had yet to talk to Jack, but with the three names in her head, she found her need to talk with him temporarily satiated.

That night the need returned as she scoured the internet for information on the three boys. Someone, somewhere, had to know what had happened to them, where they'd gone, and why they'd been a part of Danny's class one year but not the next. All she needed was to find something on one of them, something that pointed to the tragedy that had become Danny Phantom.

All she needed was one little comment to confirm that one of these names was now a ghost.

Joseph Miller

Kyle Gronkowski

Devon Tames

No, that wasn't true. She had to be thorough. She couldn't hold any old rumor on a pedestal and treat it like a fact. She needed real evidence showing one of these boys had died close to a year ago. The death of a fourteen-year-old. The tragic event was sure to at least make the local paper. But, so far, she'd found nothing.

"Mom?" Danny whispered from the other side of the RV and she jumped, his voice startling her. "What are you doing up?"

She glanced up from the screen, the darkness surrounding her engulfing her vision and making it impossible for her to see further than the hands folded in her lap. She blinked a couple times, trying to adjust. Suddenly she understood why so many people claimed using bright screens in the dark would make a person blind.

As her eyes gradually adjusted, she began to make out the form of her son sitting up from his cot. She was blind in more ways than one, she thought ruefully. She had to find a way to see again. Glancing back at the computer screen, she knew it wasn't going to give her the sight she wanted. Only Danny could do that.

She didn't think Danny would tell her anything. He'd had a year to do so and, for some reason, had chosen not to. So why would he tell the truth now?

She'd been running on the assumption that even if she asked him, he would lie to her. Perhaps that was true, but he was her son and she was his mother. And, as his mother, shouldn't she trust him enough to at least give him the opportunity to tell the truth? Maybe all he needed was the chance.

Maddie thought back to the conversation she'd overheard.

When Jazz mentioned how she told her she'd love her no matter what, Danny had jumped in saying how that only applied to Jazz, implying that—for some reason unbeknownst to Maddie—she wouldn't or couldn't love Danny the same.

Feeling awful, she squirmed in her seat. What a terrible mother she must be for her child to question her love for him. She had to reaffirm that her love for him was unconditional, just as it was for Jazz.

"Mom?" Danny asked again and she realized she hadn't answered him the first time.

Looking up at him, she said, "Yeah, sweetie?"

He leaned forward a bit, his eyes squinting in the dark. "You okay? You're not sick again, are you? I swear I made sure the fish was cooked all the way through."

She smiled softly. "Oh no," she said, "I'm okay."

Danny shuffled out from under his covers, his gaze swinging over the sleeping figures of his father and sister. She watched as, with an impressive amount of agility and stealth, he maneuvered around Jack and Jazz, not even making a sound. Seeing the way he moved, it was suddenly easy to understand how he always managed to sneak away from them.

"What are you doing?" he asked, eyeing the computer screen.

Belatedly, she thought she should have shut it down before he could see what she was doing.

"Why are you looking up," he leaned closer, "Joseph Miller, Kyle Gronkowski, and Devon Tames?"

Tell him the truth, she told herself. Maybe, if she did, and she made sure he knew how much she loved him, he would come clean too. She wanted to trust him just as she wanted him to trust her.

"Each of these boys disappeared between your eighth and ninth grade school year," she explained. "I was looking to see if any of them might have a ghostly connection." She purposely left out that she was specifically seeing if any of them had a connection to Phantom, hoping that by not mentioning that little tidbit of information, Danny might be a bit more forthcoming with her.

"Oh," Danny commented, leaning away again. "Why didn't you just ask me?"

She smiled. "You were sleeping and I didn't want to bother you, sweetie."

He shrugged. "Well, I'm not sleeping now." He eyed the names on her list once more. "Joseph Miller's parents decided they didn't want him going to Casper for high school so they sent him to a private school. Not ghostly connection there."

She nodded and crossed the name off her list.

"Kyle Gronkowski's family moved to Colorado last September. That's why he's not in my freshmen class."

She crossed the second name off the list. Her pen hovered over the last name. Devon Tames. He had to be the one. She desperately needed him to be the one.

"And Devon Tames?" Danny echoed her thoughts. "He still goes to Casper. He's not a freshman though because he skipped a grade. He's a sophomore now. The kid's a genius, a lot like Jazz."

Her heart and her hope sunk at Danny's words. "So none of them are dead?"

Her son frowned at her, shaking his head. "No. They're all very much alive. Well, as far as I know. I suppose something might have happened to Kyle since moving to Colorado, but…"

She forced a small smile onto her face, though it probably came out looking more like a grimace. "No, no," she said. "I'm sure you're right, Danny."

With great difficulty, she crossed the final name off her list. There was still one more name she hadn't written down, mostly because she didn't want to consider him a suspect. But now, he was the only one left. Still, she clung to the idea that there might be one other she could have overlooked.

"Mom?" Danny started, but stopped, seemingly hesitant to ask her something. Reaching a hand up to rub the back of his neck, he said, "Why are you looking for a dead teenager?"

She sighed, biting down on her bottom lip. Trust, she reminded herself. She was done with the lies and sneaking around. If she wanted Danny to be done with them too then she had to trust him. She could only hope he would trust her in return.

"I'm trying to find out who Phantom was before he died."

Danny stumbled backward at her words, nearly tripping over his father's sleeping form. "I—you—but—" Words formed at his lips but he couldn't seem to find the right ones to say.

"I know you know," she said, "and I also know you don't want me to know but, Danny, you can trust me. I'm your mother and I love you, no matter what your connection is to Phantom."

Her son had turned white, his skin practically glowing in the dark. She watched as he visibly swallowed and backed away from her.

"I—uh—I need to take a walk," he finally finished. His hand fumbled around the door before finding the handle and escaping out into the open air.

Maddie turned back to her list. Scrunching the paper up in a little ball, she threw it towards the trash bin, missing by a couple inches. Apparently her aim was only accurate with a gun. When it came to anything else, she sucked.

* * *

Maddie never realized just how busy a vacation could be.

People always assumed the words "vacation" and "relaxation" went hand-in-hand, but that wasn't true. There were still things to do, places to go, people to see. They'd spent the first couple days of their vacation camping on the beach but now it was time to move on.

Jack wanted to visit and tour an old hotel in the area that was rumored to be haunted. She said Jack but, in truth, she wanted to see the hotel just as much as her husband. Who knew what kind of ghosts they might run into there? The town was known for a serial killer that claimed ten victims before being apprehended in that very hotel. The possibilities excited her.

Jazz wanted to listen in on a lecture at a local university detailing a possible connection between psychological trauma and a belief in extraterrestrial life. She insisted such a topic might be relevant to her own research involving a ghost's psyche. And when Jack had begged her to choose something else to do, she refused to change her mind. It was during such arguments that Maddie was reminded just how alike her daughter and husband were—both could be so bullheaded sometimes.

And Danny…well, Danny didn't want to do much of anything. And anything he did do, he made sure she wasn't involved. He was ignoring her as much as he could. Ever since she'd come clean about her suspicions, he'd begun avoiding her in any and every way possible. And she let him. She still wanted him to trust her, to come to her with the truth. If he needed space to figure out how to do that, she'd gladly give it to him. Well, maybe not gladly. More like a bit begrudgingly. But still, she waited.

To ease the wait, she resolved to talk to Jack. She still didn't know what had happened to Danny's hazmat suit. She suspected, but again, she needed proof to confirm her suspicions. So, after Danny and Jazz had gone to bed—the two having taken to sleeping on the roof of the RV since that night she'd talked to Danny (Jazz claimed it was because she and Danny wanted to watch the stars and, part of that might have been true, but she also suspected it had to do with Danny distancing himself from her)—she broached the topic to her husband.

"Jack?" she asked.

"Hmm?" he hummed, reaching a hand up to cover his mouth as he yawned. It was obviously getting close to his bedtime too.

"Danny's pretty close to Tucker and Sam, right?"

"Sure, Mads," he said. "They're his best friends, aren't they?"

"Of course." She nodded. "But what about the other kids at Danny's school? Do you ever remember him hanging out with any of them? Maybe around the time of his lab accident?"

Jack yawned again and stretched, his hands scrapping the ceiling of the RV.

"No," he said, rubbing at his eyes. "But he should. They're nice kids." A thought seemed to awaken him and he straightened. "Oh, remember how a bunch of them joined the ghost-keteers? We had so much fun at those meetings." Jack frowned. "Hmm, we haven't had a meeting in a long time, maybe I should schedule one."

She nodded absentmindedly. "That would be nice," she said. "But Jack? You didn't perhaps loan one of the ghost-keteers Danny's hazmat suit, did you?"

"Danny's hazmat suit?" Jack repeated, continuing to frown. "You mean the one I made him?"

"Yeah. The white and black one?"

"Oh yeah, that one!" her husband boomed the memory returning to him. "Hmm, I haven't seen that in a long time."

"So you think you might have loaned it to a ghost-keteer then?" she pushed, desperately hoping the next word out of Jack's mouth would be "yes."

It wasn't.

"No," he said, scratching the top of his head. "Danny's suit went missing long before we had our first ghost-keteer meeting."

"Oh." Her hope all but disappeared at his words.

"I wish I knew what happened to it," Jack mused. "I remember doing this really cool looking design on the 'Fentonworks' tag but I can't remember what it was to recreate it."

She gulped. "Did it have something to do with a swirl on the 'F?'"

Jack lit up. "You remember it! Do you think you could draw it for me, Mads? I really want to make another one."

She swallowed, unable to issue a single word in response. Her husband bounced excitedly beside her, but she only felt like she was melting into a puddle of despair. She'd hoped it wouldn't come to this. But the evidence was staring her in the face, possibly beating her over the head. There wasn't another. She was never going to find someone else as connected to Phantom as Danny was.

If Danny's hazmat suit and Phantom's jumpsuit were one and the same then that meant…


	8. it

**Ohmygosh! Thank you thank you thank you for all the reviews (35? New record!)! Also, thank you for being so understanding about my tardiness last week. However, I do still feel bad about it so guess what? I'm giving you the next chapter early! Well, sort of.**

 **Anyway, it's a shorter one, but an extremely important one. Lots of reflection on Maddie's part, lots of metaphors on mine...honestly though, I think I had the most fun writing this chapter. It was tough but I like how it turned out. Hope you do too. See you soon for the LAST chapter!**

 **Happy reading!**

* * *

Danny. It belonged to Danny.

She desperately tried not to think about it.

The next day Maddie avoided her son. She told herself she wasn't—that she was giving him the space he needed—but, deep down, she knew otherwise. Space didn't mean switching seats with Jazz at lunch or not taking part in a conversation he'd started or pretending like she didn't hear him and walking away when he asked her a question. That last part shamed her most of all.

She was Maddie Fenton. Ghost expert. Loving mother. And yet, given one little piece of information she couldn't look Danny in the eye. No wonder he didn't trust her.

But she couldn't help it. She feared if she spent any more time with her son that damned theory in her head would take over. As it was, it was already driving her mad.

Over and over Maddie ran the facts through her mind. She recited them like lines in a play or, more accurately, like that raven poem her seventh grade teacher had her memorize, the one she could still remember today. Perhaps that's where her fascination with ghosts came from.

Danny gave Phantom their thermos.

The two were connected.

Phantom had a Fentonworks jumpsuit.

Correction: Phantom had _Danny's_ Fentonworks jumpsuit.

 _And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.*_

Just as she could recall every word in the poem, even the simple ones, she found herself uttering the most basic of facts under her breath.

Phantom was a ghost.

Danny was human.

White and black. Black and white. But what if things weren't just black and white? What if the answer was right in front of her but she couldn't see it because she was colorblind? What if she was blind?

 _Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing.*_

Was it like the other night? Had she been staring at a bright screen for so long she couldn't see through the darkness at all? Would it ever be possible for her to see through it again? That night, after blinking enough times, she'd been able to see Danny's form through the dark. If she waited for her eyes to adjust, just gave herself some time, then would she be able to see? But, even if she did, that begged the question—what would she see?

That theory prodded the back of her mind, clawing at her brain, trying to reach her visible light. She pushed it down, but it kept creeping back in to her line of sight.

 _Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before.*_

If she managed to see, would she even believe what she saw?

The suit Jack made for Danny, the one she now knew had been missing for over a year, had been white with black accessories. Phantom's jumpsuit was black with white accessories. Danny had black hair. Phantom had white hair. Human and ghost. Living and dead. Equal opposites.

The colors black and white were natural inverses of each other. One absorbed light while the other reflected it. Also equal opposites. But put together they created a whole new color. And all this time she'd never thought to blend the two to make gray.

But once she did, the rest of the colors in her palate finally fell into place.

Phantom knew Jazz. And not only that, he'd wanted to save her. He consistently interacted with members of the Fenton family despite knowing two of its members were proclaimed ghost hunters. He wasn't just connected to her family—Phantom actually thought he was a part of it. And she didn't blame him for thinking such things.

Because Danny and Phantom were like two sides of the same coin.

In a way, they were _both_ Danny. Her Danny.

His accident with the ghost portal—the one last year when he'd just gotten a "little shock" as he said—she'd been right in thinking that had been the start of it all. Because it had been. That was when Danny Phantom was born. It was when Danny Fenton died.

She didn't know how exactly—probably something to do with faulty wiring—or for how long, but she knew Danny had died that day.

It wasn't completely uncommon. In fact, it really wasn't uncommon at all. There were tons of stories about people dying, crossing over to the other side, and coming back. And that was what must have happened to Danny.

To think that he'd experienced death at such a young age—to experience it all was at most times terrifying—and all alone too… The thought nearly broke her. She had no idea how he'd been able to deal with all of this. With dying, with coming back, with learning he had a ghost. It was almost too much for her to take in, and it hadn't even happened to her. Her baby boy had died.

A few seconds, a minute, two minutes, five…who knows? But for however long he was dead had been enough to create a ghost of his soul. That was how Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were connected. They were one and the same.

 _And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming.*_

She found her hand absently patting her pocket, the small bump indicating the presence of the scrap of fabric inside. Knowing it was there brought a small comfort to her.

But she knew what she had to do. More so what she needed to do.

Her doubts were nearly just as strong as the theory slowly torturing her. The doubts inside her beat the theory, pummeling it until she thought maybe it had died. But then the theory would sneak up on her, slithering through her surefooted doubts, tripping them one by one.

She had to end the fight. And there was only one way to finish it.

Her hand trembled a bit as she reached up to unzip her secure pocket. From within she pulled the smooth scrap of Phantom's suit. Unfolding it, she revealed the Fentonworks tag and the white thread she'd tucked inside.

It wasn't a thread.

She knew that. She knew it the minute she'd found it woven through the silk-like fabric. But she'd refused to let herself believe it could be what it actually was. Perhaps, even then, she knew what revelation such a clue would bring and hadn't wanted to face such insights yet. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to face them now.

She thought of Danny. Of the look on his face when he'd stumbled out of the RV after she'd confessed to him what she was really researching. The truth—her knowing the truth—terrified him. It terrified her too.

But she had to do it. She had to put an end to it all.

She also had to be hopeful. Maybe it wouldn't be the end. Maybe it would be the beginning.

Fingers poised, she carefully pulled the white hair from the black and white fabric. Holding it up, she peered at the strand, focusing in on it. Everything in her peripheral vision blurred in comparison to the hair.

She swiveled in her seat, turning to face the controls for the weapons compartment. The opening for the DNA security lock blinked steadily back at her.

This was insane.

 _She_ was insane.

For doing this, for thinking anything would come of it, for even considering it. Because nothing was going to happen. She had to know that.

Before she'd been searching for evidence to disprove her theory and, when she came up empty, she'd been forced to change tactics. Now, instead of disproving it, she sought to evidence to prove it. It wasn't as good as finding something to discount her hypothesis, but if she were to fail in her search and discover nothing to validate her theory then she would be content. Because, in her mind, something could not be proven true without evidence to back up the claim.

But everything she'd learned, everything she'd discovered, had led her to this. It was also all she needed to confirm the truth—the last piece before she could move towards acceptance and healing.

Staring at the single strand of iridescent, white hair, she rolled it between her fingertips. To even think it was possible for this hair to open a Fenton DNA lock made her crazy. Certifiably insane.

She almost wished someone would barge in and take her away right now. If this didn't work out like she suspected, then she might have to get someone to lock her away. Because if this didn't work then she…she didn't know. She just didn't know.

But it had to work. As crazy as it sounded, it had to.

She knew Phantom had gotten that extra thermos from the RV, and she knew what she'd overheard from Danny and Jazz. And then there was the tag she'd torn from Phantom's suit. The most damning evidence of them all. She was sure he'd gotten his jumpsuit from Jack, which meant it originally belonged to Danny. Still did, in a way.

Maddie pressed the button to open the weapons vault. The machine prompted her for DNA verification. Before she could let herself think on it any further, she dropped the strand from Phantom's head into the machine. She watched in anticipation as it sucked it up, its lights flickering as it processed the DNA sample.

Seconds passed before the security lock dinged happily at her and a robotic voice sang, "Daniel Fenton confirmed. Kick ghost butt."

At last, her theory won out. It rolled away her doubts like a criminal rolling a dead body off the end of a dock. She felt it in her stomach when that dead body hit the ocean waves below.

Maddie slumped into the chair as the cabinet opened before her, revealing their assortment of ghost hunting weapons. Her eyes stared at the array without really seeing it.

She was right. Danny had died. And, not only that, he'd died and left a piece of himself behind.

What was that like? To not be whole?

No wonder he'd been having a tough year. She could scarcely imagine what it must have been like for him. To die and to wake up only to realize your soul was broken? To look out at the world and see that piece you lost reflected back at you? Always there, but never within reach?

And for Phantom…to still have that connection to a living person. The emotions he must go through, what he must feel…

She'd never believed him when he claimed he was good, that he would never hurt a human being. But now she knew he hadn't been lying. He was probably about as likely to hurt someone as Danny was. She used to wonder why Phantom fought against his own kind so frequently. Now she didn't have to wonder. Phantom did what Danny would do. He protected life at all costs—just as Danny had wanted to do for that little bird he'd found.

She could see Danny in Phantom. In his mannerisms, his looks, his little quips, even his voice. They were all Danny. How had she not put it all together sooner?

A hole in the display of weapons brought her mind back to the present.

The thermos was still missing.

Somehow that made everything worse. She didn't know why. It just did. Like one more knife to the heart—the last piercing blade driving away her own life force.

Tears broke through her barriers, escaping out of her eyelids and sliding down her face, creating tiny flowing rivers on her cheeks.

He used the thermos to capture ghosts. He hunted ghosts.

 _And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor.*_

While she had hunted him.

 _And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!*_

* * *

*excerpts from _The Raven_ by Edgar Allen Poe


	9. unravel

**Sooooo hi. Remember how sorry I was before about being late? Yeah, well think of that times 100. That's how I feel now. But guys, this chapter kicked my butt. Like seriously. For weeks (as you probably noticed) I sat around wondering how the hell this story was going to end. The ending I'd originally jotted down no longer fit the overall feel of the piece and after all the emotions I put in the last chapter, I didn't know how to give Maddie any more. Long story short: I struggled, a lot.**

 **But now (over a month later- yikes I'm sorry again), I have this chapter for you. I don't know what to call it. I'm not sure if it's good or bad or whatever. All I know is I think I finally found the right note to end on. Hope you find yourself in tune with that note.**

* * *

The sun set, bright and slow, casting cavernous colors across the gentle sea. The steady disappearance of it summoned a simple calm to the area, as if the star was singing the Earth a hushed lullaby. It sang until the stars poked holes in the deep blanket of the sky. Even the seagulls, whose squawking and chatter had woken her each morning well before six, settled into a quiet hum consisting only of the occasional ruffling of feathers.

The peaceful scene would have calmed anyone else, but not Maddie.

She felt exhilarated and anxious and worried and ready all at the same time. Well, maybe not ready.

How could anyone be ready to reconcile the knowledge she gathered with the secret her son has kept so carefully hidden for so long? Ready definitely wasn't the right word.

She was resolute. Not necessarily ready to have her life changed, but determined to feel that forward motion. She couldn't stay stuck in the past. In a way, she'd already moved on from it. Already she couldn't ignore Danny's lies or Jazz's attempts to distract her. She was different and thus her life needed to reflect that change.

It was time for her to come clean.

Her sobs had already washed away all her annoyance and hatred. With each tear that fell, the prejudices she still held against ghosts—against Phantom specifically—dried up. Of course, after watching Phantom and overhearing Danny, there hadn't been many left when she started crying in the first place. But now they'd all completely vanished.

She wanted to talk to Danny alone, but the RV wasn't exactly a prime place for secret conversations. Living in such close quarters, she realized none of them were ever really alone. She'd been lucky to get the time to herself she had.

When she'd lied down to go to sleep she'd foolishly thought she could wait until morning to talk to Danny. But after half an hour had passed and her racing heart still hadn't slowed. Even the steady, thunderous snores coming from her husband beside her didn't ease the tension she held inside. She turned to face him.

Jack, her loving, exuberant husband.

She had to tell him. But first she had to talk to Danny. If she told Jack her discovery before confronting Danny... Well, she couldn't imagine things going very smoothly.

Reaching up, she gently ran a hand down his arm. She watched as he breathed in deeply, his snores softening. Whispered voices carried through the roof to Maddie's ears. Sighing, she sat up, her eyes focusing in on the ceiling. At least she wouldn't have to worry about waking her children up. It seemed they too were restless.

Kissing Jack softly on the cheek, she stood up and hopped out of the RV. The sea air welcomed her like an encouraging pat on the back. She was doing the right thing. She walked around to the back of the RV and began climbing the ladder to the roof. Poking her head up, she saw Danny and Jazz lying side by side on top of their sleeping bags.

"And there's Cancer," Danny was saying as he pointed to the night sky, "or some call it the crab."

"Where?" Jazz asked. "I don't see it."

"It's there." Danny pointed again. "It's a little harder to see, but those two stars side by side are part of it."

"I still don't see it," Jazz huffed.

"Danny? Jazz?" Maddie said, alerting her children to her presence.

Jazz sat up while Danny lifted his head.

"Mom?" Danny said. "We didn't know you were still up."

"Were we too loud?" Jazz asked, glancing back at her brother. "I told Danny to be quieter."

Maddie smiled sadly, knowing she was about to rupture this happy atmosphere.

"No, no," she said, "you're fine. I was just hoping to talk to Danny alone for a little while."

Once again, Jazz shot her brother a look, though this one held infinitely more meaning. It spoke of understanding, hope, fear, and a final push that to Maddie seemed indispensable to the night.

"Sure, Mom," Jazz said. She moved to get up, but not before nudging Danny in the shoulder and giving him a reassuring smile. After that, she climbed down the ladder. Maddie waited for the sound and shake of the RV door closing before she turned toward her son.

Where to begin?

With the scrap of fabric? With the lab accident? With Phantom? She'd learned so much more about ghosts over the past few days than she had her whole life. And she'd once promised to dedicate her life to the research of ghosts. Would this even be happening if she hadn't made such a promise? Probably not. But that didn't change the fact that she'd made that promise.

It wasn't often she got away from it. Or from Fenton works, Amity Park, ghosts. Of course, Maddie realized, she'd probably never get away from ghosts again. Not when her son had one. She'd made that promise and she was never going to escape it. And, despite the fear bouncing between Danny and herself, she was happy she'd made that promise. The promise might become the thread that stitches her and her son back together.

"Danny," she started, staring at him.

A cloud shifted and the moonlight hit the roof, illuminating them both.

It was so easy to see now that she knew to look for it. Her mind was able to swap black hair for white, a concerned gaze for a cocky smile, and those blue eyes. She loved his blue eyes. But behind her own eyes she could see the neon green of ectoplasm tainting that blue. Before she knew it, her image of Amity Park's most infamous ghost fit into the puzzle piece that was her son.

"Phantom."

Danny paled. A choked laugh escaped him before he threw his head back. His eyes danced across the sky, making a show of searching, but too many times did his gaze connect with hers to be convincing. Still, he plastered a fake smile onto his face.

"Danny Phantom's not here, Mom," he said, continuing to smile. "Actually, I think…Sam? Yeah, Sam! Sam said she saw him in Amity Park." He nodded fervently as if the action could make up for his flimsy words. "He's already back home, Mom."

A lie. Entirely too easy to pick out now.

"No," she said softly. " _Danny_."

She watched her son swallow. His hand reached up to rub that spot at the back of his head. A black hair fell onto the collar of his white shirt just as she'd seen Phantom's white one fall onto his black jumpsuit. A jumpsuit she knew had been white at some point. Two colors inverse of each other. Black and white. If only the truth could be so easy.

"Yeah, Mom?" He looked up at her. Everything about that look screamed fear. He was terrified of what she had to say. She hated to see such intense fear, but she had to say it.

"I know," she said. "I know Danny Phantom is you."

He didn't try to change the subject or feign ignorance this time. He simply stared back at her, silently pleading with her. No, that wasn't it. He wasn't begging her not to say anything.

He pressed his lips together, enough to wash away their color. The corners of his eyes crinkled as if he were studying her, searching inside her for something. What exactly, she didn't know. Finally, he let go of his lips and exhaled, a question in his eyes.

He was asking her if she really wanted to know. He was giving her a chance to back out, because he knew once she knew the truth there was no going back. Things would never be the same again. And maybe that'd be okay, because they'd be better than they were before, but maybe things wouldn't be okay. They could get worse, a lot worse. Did she really want to know?

Except…she already knew. Didn't she? All she was really asking for was undeniable proof. But once such proof was out in the open neither she nor Danny could ignore it anymore. She could walk away without it right now and Danny would go on lying to her and she could pretend she believed him. They could tiptoe around each other, never telling the whole truth.

The truth. That was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. She'd wanted to know the truth about Phantom. Did she still want to know?

Yes. Yes, she did.

Because while she'd wanted to learn more about Phantom she also wanted to be closer to her children. She didn't want to lie to them or hide things from them. She wanted to trust them, and she hoped, more than anything, they could find a way to trust her again.

"Please, tell me."

Danny opened his mouth to say something but no sound came out. The silence hung in the air, sewing together the passing seconds. Frowning slightly, he closed it again and shook his head. When he took a step away from her, her visceral reaction was to reach for him, to pull him back towards her. She was afraid he was trying to run away again, like he had the other night. But when he held up a hand, solidifying the space between them and his presence in front of her, she froze. Visibly, he swallowed. She could see the internal preparation and determination in his expression. Then he threw his fists toward the sky.

An eruption of light flooded the night around them and Maddie instinctively closed her eyes. But a little voice inside her head demanded she open them, despite the harsh light, because somehow she knew, even with the irrefutable facts she'd uncovered, if she didn't see this she would never believe it.

As her eyes adjusted, rings of white light formed in her vision. Bright and iridescent as she imagined a halo might be, these rings were larger, wider, and they encircled her son's waist. She held her breath as she watched the rings begin to travel in opposite directions. They swept over Danny's body, changing him. Like wiping a dry erase board clean, the rings erased the familiar white t-shirt and jeans, replacing them with a just as familiar, yet less comforting, black jumpsuit. His black hair turned white and those baby, blue eyes she loved so much became a harsh, radioactive green. The rings disappeared, fading out as if reaching their limit, and she knew.

"Ta-da?" Danny asked, doing a half-hearted twirl in the air while she stared.

She'd suspected, but until that moment, she hadn't believed. Her son was Danny Phantom. The "DP" logo on the front of his jumpsuit pulsed as if in confirmation. But it also wasn't what she'd expected. Her brain struggled to connect her suspicions with the reality in front of her.

She said the first thing that came mind. It wasn't the smartest thing to say and it wasn't something that would propel the unbearably difficult conversation ahead of them forward, but she couldn't stop it. Because the incomprehensible was never meant to be understood.

It just slipped out.

"A ghost?"

Danny's gloved hands flew out in front of him and he waved them frantically in her face. "Oh, gosh. Umm, that's not right. This is not how…" he stuttered, trailing off. More white rings and bright light, and he was on the ground once more with black hair and that white t-shirt he loved so much.

"See? It's still me. Danny," he added, as if she might have forgotten.

She hadn't been ready for the switch that time and had forgotten to keep her eyes open. Her lack of sight didn't help her understanding. She needed more. More information. More time. She wasn't sure if she'd get either. The only way to find out was to ask.

"Can I—" she hesitated, unsure of how to communicate what she wanted, "Can I see your transformation again?"

Danny smiled as if she'd just given him a puppy for Christmas. "Sure," he said before they were once again bathed in white light.

"So," she started slowly, beginning to feel stupid, "you're not a ghost?"

Danny grimaced. "Not exactly, but I do have ghost powers."

"Like?"

The next second, Danny Phantom disappeared from sight. This time she knew she hadn't blinked.

Invisibility had always been the one ghost ability that annoyed her the most. Intangibility she could handle. If a ghost went through a wall at least she knew it would simply end up on the other side. And, as Jack often did without consulting her (much to the chagrin of their rising debt), smashing through the wall usually swept away the intangibility problem. But when a ghost went invisible, she was blind. She hated that. Many ghosts, Phantom included, had managed to escape her by running off while invisible. Even after they'd developed the technology to see a ghost in its invisible state, the incognito ability still irked her.

"You let me see you right now, young man," she barked, falling into her authoritative "mom" voice without a single thought.

Danny immediately blinked back to visibility. Hanging his head a bit, white strands of hair covering his eyebrows, he muttered, "Sorry, Mom."

She sucked in a breath.

The "mom" was what tripped her. She knew Danny Phantom had come from Danny, but she hadn't even considered that Phantom was pretending to be Danny—that once he died, he changed his shape to take Danny's place so no one would know Danny Fenton was dead.

Her son was dead. All that was left of him floated right in front of her.

"You're dead," she whispered, finally letting her air out.

"No." His voice sounded so sure. She'd never heard such confidence leave her son's lips.

Another flash of light and he was her Danny again. His blue eyes begged her to look at him. He took her hand—his was so cold—and placed it against his chest. She nearly snatched it away, but froze at the sensation beneath her fingertips.

"Feel that?" he said. "It's my heartbeat. My heart still beats, Mom. Last I checked, dead people don't do that."

She pushed her fingers harder into his chest. The thumping of his heart pushed back. He was right. Dead people didn't have a heartbeat.

Then how…?

He must have seen the question in her eyes, because he shrugged his shoulders and started talking. She didn't take her hand off his chest, needing to feel that continuous pounding underneath.

"We don't know exactly what happened," he began, eyes wandering the ground. "Tucker thinks the electricity from the ghost portal managed to alter my DNA, fusing ectoplasm in my cells. Sam thinks I half-died—like she thinks I started to die, enough to create a ghost half, but that something pulled me back. Jazz thinks I'm actually still straddling the line between the living and the dead, which is why I can so easily jump between the two. And I'm not sure what to think—maybe a combination of all three?" He shrugged again. "I don't know. All I know is that when I came out of that ghost portal, I wasn't completely human anymore."

He looked away, staring at the ground like he'd somehow fallen beneath it and it was the one stepping all over him, not the other way around. In his eyes, she could see how he felt like he deserved to be there. How he felt like he was less than the ground.

Why would he think that?

Her curiosity got the best of her. She couldn't keep it locked away. Though she did do her best to tame it.

Danny's words were echoing in her ears.

 _Not human._

What did that even mean? If Danny wasn't human then what was he?

She reached her other hand up and ran her fingers through his black hair, brushing it out of his eyes. To think a single strand of this hair, caught in a jumpsuit tag had led her here.

A light wind blew against them and strands of his hair tickled the spaces between her fingers. His hair still felt like his hair, his skin—though slightly colder than hers—still felt like his skin. And despite the color changes in his other form, he still looked like the Danny she knew. Aside from the faint glow emanating from his body when he was Phantom, everything about him screamed human.

She nodded once to herself. Of course he wasn't completely human.

"You're right," she said.

His gaze snapped up to hers, eyebrows furrowed, frown lines wrinkling his pasty forehead.

"You're not completely human," she repeated back to him, "because you're human and _more_." The fingers of the hand still pressed against his beating heart curled in a bit, holding him loosely.

A second chance. Second chances at life were fantasy. Everyone wanted them, but they didn't exist.

Danny had been given that one impossible second chance.

He had died. And yet, he was standing right there in front of her alive. He said he was both: alive and dead. But the inaccuracy of that statement irked her. Life and death weren't the opposites she once thought they were. He'd made her see that. Both life and death touched all, both would always be there, working together, but they weren't the two sides of a coin her son seemed to be.

Life stretched and lasted, while death was momentary, fleeting. She would argue that one didn't spend years dying. Even if the person knew when they would die, they would still spend the time leading up to death living. They were still considered to have life.

If she had to, she would define death as the immeasurable moment when a person crosses that line between the living and the dead. Not when they're on the living side and not when they're on the other, but right when they're over the line between the two. Did such a moment even exist?

And if that incomprehensible moment was death, then what was life?

She could try to define it, but she knew her words would get jumbled or come out wrong. Inevitably, she'd leave out a crucial part of life's definition. She couldn't define it, but she could provide examples. Like herself. She wasn't so arrogant as to think she was all life, but she could be one example of it.

Danny could be another.

Danny could be another, but he could also be an example of what life wasn't. Ghosts weren't life, were they? She'd been taught to think of ghosts as what happens to life after death. Ghosts weren't life. They were after it. The afterlife.

And yet, even if ghosts were a part of what happened when life ceased, that didn't mean they didn't deserve the respect she gave those with life. When people died they mourned them. They buried them in sacred ground. They made it punishable to disturb them. They wrote speeches in their honor and commiserated with others, all the while desperately wishing some miracle would come along and bring back the life they lost.

She stared at her son.

Wasn't he the miracle billions of people before her had and billions of people after her would ask for? Wasn't he exactly what everyone in the world wanted? If she'd known he'd died wouldn't she have begged for such a miracle?

She hadn't asked. She hadn't known to ask. But she'd still been given.

And who was she to turn down a miracle?

 **The End.**

* * *

 **For those few of you who have made it to the end of some of my other stories, you know I like to say thank you. To everyone. I thank my followers: THANK YOU! I thank those who favorited: THANK YOU! And I thank every single one of my reviewers. I take the time to write, but all of you take the time to not only read my writing but to give me your thoughts on it. Your words are invaluable to me and you all deserve to be recognized. So a HUGE thank you to:**

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 **Anyway, time to go, I'm tired.**

 **Colette**


	10. Author's Note

Hi everyone! It's been awhile. Thank you for all your reviews and support of this story! If you are interested, I've posted a one-shot continuation from Jack's point-of-view titled, _Weaving the Needle_. Follow the link on my author page to check it out!


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